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THE DOCTOR'S PART 




First Aid Post in a Church 



p. 243 



THE 

DOCTOR'S PART 

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE WOUNDED IN WAR 



BY 
JAMES ROBB CHURCH, A.M., M.D. 

COLONEL MEDICAL COHPS, IT. S. AEMT 
WITH FOREWORD BY 

MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM C. GORGAS 

SUBGEON-GENERAL, U. S. ABMT 




ILLUSTRATED 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK LONDON 

1918 



Copyright, 1918, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



0CT-9f9l8 •' 

Printed in the United States of America 



l'^^ OGU503764 



FOREWORD 

These impressions of a Military Observer are 
the results of over two years spent by Colonel 
Church on the Western front as an Observer with 
our Allies and later on the Staff of the Command- 
ing General of the American Expeditionary Force. 

His service of twenty years in our army, includ- 
ing duty on the Mexican border and with the 
First United States Volunteer Cavalry (Rough 
Riders), in the war with Spain where he won the 
Medal of Honor for gallantry uruler fire, well 
qualifies him for this important duty. 

The author has presented in non-technical lan- 
guage much information which will be of value to 
Medical and line officers as they go abroad on 
active duty with troops in France. 

The book will also be read with interest by the 
laity as Colonel Church has the happy faculty of 
presenting the human side of his experiences in 
an interesting manner. 

He has given us a glimpse of certain side lights 
of the great war not heretofore available. 

W. C. GORGAS, 

Surgeon General, 

U. S. Army. 
July 1, 1918. 

Washington, D. C. 



PREFACE 

So much has already been written in regard to 
the present war that any one who essays to add to 
the sum total cannot help but wonder if there is 
anything left unexpressed by those who have gone 
before him. 

The inclination to describe the many complex 
phases which enter into modern conflict is per- 
haps natural. There are two passions which are, 
have always been, of paramount interest to man- 
kind. Kipling voices this when he says, "Two 
things greater than all things are, the first is love, 
the second is war." And so I fancy that each 
individual who has been given the opportunity to 
view with his own material eyes a part of the 
titanic struggle which at present convulses this 
troubled world, believes that some of the events 
which he has taken a part in may be of interest 
to others. 

And yet I am sure there must always be hidden 
somewhere in the back of his mind the doubting 
conviction that the events which seem so real to 
him may lack, when expressed, the value which 
they have in his own eyes. 

George Moore, in his altogether charming and 
entirely irresponsible writings, "Memoirs of My 
Dead Life," says, 

"Think of the writer of stories! Two, three, 
or four more stories are required to make up the 

9 



PREFACE 

requisite number of pages. The dusk has inter- 
rupted his labor, and he rises from his writing- 
table asking who will care whether the last stories 
are written or left unwritten? If he writes them 
his ideas will flicker green for a brief springtime, 
they will enjoy a little summer; when his garden 
is fading in the autumn his leaves will be well- 
nigh forgotten; winter will overtake them sooner 
than it overtakes his garden, perhaps. The flow- 
ers he deemed immortal are more mortal than the 
rose. 'Why,' he asks, 'should any one be inter- 
ested in my stories any more than in the thousand 
and one stories published this year? Mine are 
among the number of trivial things that compose 
the tedium which we call life.' " 

In much the same way I am a little doubtful 
as to whether the things I saw, and had a part in,, 
may have the same active interest to others that 
they did for me. 

During a busy period of more than two years 
in embattled France I had ample opportunity to 
observe the work which my French professional 
brothers were doing, and the conditions under 
which they worked from the first line trenches 
where the wounds are made, back to the hospitals 
of the inner area where the human wreckage is 
patched and cobbled and coaxed again to full effi- 
ciency, or to something which has a semblance to 
man as God made him in His image. 

The wastage in Medical personnel has been high 
in the present war and the Sanitary Service has 
paid its own red toll shoulder to shoulder with 
the brothers of the Line. I believe this common 
sacrifice in the cause has brought the two services 
<Joser together than ever before: has enabled each 

10 



PREFACE 

to become better acquainted with the fine qualities 
of the other and to be more tolerant with the short- 
comings. 

I saw things which I cannot write of for ob- 
vious Military reasons. I saw others which are 
best left untold as the gratuitous transcription of 
suffering and horror which should have no other 
than a morbid interest to the layman. 

The following pages comprise the impressions 
of a Medical Military Observer of matters in his 
own province, together with notes of other current 
affairs. It is in no sense technical and it makes 
no pretense to the dignity of "literature." 

I hope that there may be something of interest 
in it for those who look with wistful eyes to the 
troubled East and wait with aching hearts for the 
return of some one, "over there." 

James £obb Church. 
Washington, D. C, 
July, 1918. 



IT 



CONTENTS 



I. Introductory 



II. General Sanitary Service op the 
French 

III, Hospitals of the Interior 

IV. The Zone op the Armies 
V. Transportation 

VI. Front Lines . 

VII. Conclusion 



PAGll 

17 

34 
69 
104 
168 
222 
261 



13 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

First Aid Post in a Church . Frontispiece 

PACug 
Red Cross Nurses at a Railway Station 
Canteen Giving Coffee to the Wounded 61 

Tent Wards, Showing One of the Type of 
Tent Used by the French . . .61 

Mutilated Soldier Learning to Engrave 
with an Artificial Hand ... 79 

Soldier with Double Amputation of the 
Arms, Showing How Much May Be Ac- 
complished with the Artificial Hands . 7§ 

Fracture Ward in Blake's Hospital, Com- 
monly Known There as the Machine 
Shop 85 

A Fracture Ward 85 

Operating Room on a "Sanitary Train" 145 

Interior of a French Dental Ambulance. 
This is a Rolling Dental Office, Com- 
pletely Fitted and Mounted on an Auto- 
mobile Truck 145 

Transport of Wounded by Litter Through 
a Trench 169 

Wheel Litter Transport . . . . 169 

15 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Ambnlance Drawn by Dogs . . . 185 

Sanitary Dog . . . ''Eed Cross Dog". . . 
Dressing His "Wounds .... 185 

First Aid Post in Cellar Belonging to 
Arab, ''Spahi" Troop . . . .205 

A Trench, Showing Sign Indicating Loca- 
tion of a First Aid Station . . . 205 



16 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTOEY 



I SUPPOSE that prior to the present war few 
of the people who make up our ten million and 
odd of population had any more than a hazy 
idea of what the army, which they paid taxes 
to support, did to justify the expenditure. 
Ideas were hazy because, in our remoteness, it 
seemed that we were geographically immune 
from attack, and consequently the armed 
forces carried about the same interest as 
father's old revolver, loaded and tucked away 
in the back of the top bureau drawer: a tacit 
concession to the possibility of the unexpected 
burglar, but from any other standpoint of lit- 
tle interest. 

And so, when in 1915 I told some of my 
17 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

civilian friends that I had been ordered abroad 
for duty as MiKtary Observer, they looked 
slightly puzzled and after asking, "What do 
you mean. Military Observer?" reverted to cur- 
rent topics in a language they could under- 
stand. 

A Military Observer is an authorized inter- 
national Village Pest: he is tolerated by bel- 
ligerent powers because they may some time 
desire themselves to be onlookers in a quarrel 
which does not concern them. He is treated 
with very perfect courtesy, but what he sees 
is not nearly so much a matter of consequence 
to the nation at war as to put something over 
on the enemy. He is governed and hedged 
about by very precise diplomatic conditions, 
and transgression of them is more than apt to 
result in his recall. 

From his own standpoint, he is, to begin 
with, a neutral: at least, he is very particular 
to convey that impression to those with whom 
he comes in contact. In the privacy of his 
own mind it is allowable to give rein to his indi- 
18 



INTRODUCTORY 

vidual wishes and sympathies, but aside from 
that he must be a perfectly impersonal and 
very inquisitive person. 

His duties are to collect and transmit in- 
formation : that is about the sum and substance 
of the instructions he gets, and the methods 
are a matter of his own personal resource and 
ingenuity. The fact that he is an accredited 
representative of his Government gives him a 
certain standing with the country to which he 
is sent, but aside from that it is a more or less 
perfunctory status. In the first place, the 
warring power is entirely too busy, as I have 
said, to give up time which may be profitably 
employed in that engaging pastime of "killing 
your neighbor" to showing a benevolent neu- 
tral exactly all the detail of the modus oper- 
andi. In addition, there is also the justifiable 
uncertainty as to which side the neutral might 
take if he decided to break into a busy private 
quarrel. The usual International procedure is 
to carefully guard the safety and welfare of 
the observers so that they may be returned in 
19 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

undamaged condition eventually to the country 
which sent them. At stated intervals trips are 
arranged for all the Observers in the country 
and they are taken under the chaperon age of 
a designated officer to such points as the fight- 
ing host deems proper, and he shows as much as 
is considered advisable. You do not see more 
than that, either : as Ruggles of Red Gap said, 
**it simply isn't done." The country you rep- 
resent cannot make too many requests, for it 
would be embarrassing to refuse them and 
embarrassing to be refused. And there you 
are! Which may go to show that the job of 
collecting and forwarding useful information 
from a country at war, to your own Govern- 
ment is by no means a sinecure, but a job 
which requires patience, tact and resource. If 
you add to this the fact that all the interesting 
things that you want to know about are cam- 
ouflaged under a language which you thought 
you knew something about until you heard the 
rapid and careless way its inventors use it, it 
may readily be understood that the life of the 
20 



2S41527. 

WAR DEPARTMENT 
THE ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE 

WASHINGTON 

November 15, 1915. 

From: The Adjutant General of the Army. 

To: Major James R. Church, Medical Corps, Fort Crockett, 
Texas, through the Commanding General, Eastern Depart- 
ment. 
Subject: Detail as Military Observer. 

1. The Secretary of War details you as a military observer 
with the French armies in the field. 

2. The Secretary directs, as necessary in the military ser- 
vice, that you repair to this city at the earliest practicable 
date and report in person to the Chief of Staff for temporary 
duty in his office for a period of fifteen days; that at the ex- 
piration of this period you proceed to Paris, France, and 
report to the American Ambassador at that capital for the 
purpose of carrying out the instructions of the War Depart- 
ment, and that upon the completion of the duty enjoined 
you return to your proper station. 

3. The Secretary of War appoints you an acting quarter- 
master while on this duty. p ^ March 

Adjutant General. 
Eec'd Hq. Eastern Dept. Nov. 16, 1915 
201 Church, James R. 1st Ind. was-mr 

HQ. EASTERN DEPT., Nov. 17, 1915.— Through Depart- 
ment Surgeon and Comdg. Officer, Ft. Crockett, Tex., to 
Major James R. Church, Med. Corps. WAS 

H.P.B. 2nd Ind. 

Office Dept. Surgeon, E. D., Nov. 18, 1915— Through the 
C. O. Ft. Crockett, to Major James R. Church, M.C. 

RECD HCDG 

AM 11/22/15 

Thru Surgeon, to Maj. James R. Church, M C, 11/22/15 

Author's Appointment as Military Observer 
IN France 

21 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Military Observer is not an idle one nor alto- 
gether a bed of roses. 

I knew all this as a matter of theory before 
I went to France but, once there, I quickly 
recognized the difference between theory and 
practice. 

In November, 1915, I received an order 
which came in the nature of a surprise. (See 
page 21.) The opportunity offered was a fas- 
cinating one, but the novel demand which it 
makes on one's resources would, I think, leave 
the average man with some apprehension as to 
whether he could measure up to the standard 
expected of him. 

I left the United States on the 15th of Jan- 
uary, 1916, and after the usual winter cross- 
ing, which was at that time little disturbed by 
any apprehension of submarine menace, landed 
at Liverpool; from Liverpool to London and, 
after a short stay there, to France. The Chan- 
nel crossing, even at that time, was a tedious 
and delayed procedure, and one knew only a 
short time in advance as to what port he would 
22 



INTRODUCTORY 

sail from and at what he would arrive. We 
crossed from Folkestone to Dieppe on the after- 
ward ill-fated Stussex, and if she had been 
torpedoed that day, I think there might have 
been an extended casualty list, for every avail- 
able inch of space seemed to be occupied by 
human freight. The cabins were full, the din- 
ing saloon was jammed, all deck chairs occu- 
pied, and many stood on deck during the five 
or six bleak hours that it required to transport 
us from Albion to Gaul. Fortunately, the sea 
was smooth and there was none of the horror 
of seasickness. 

At Dieppe, in the darkness of a winter night, 
we proved to the Alien Officer that we were suit- 
able for entry into France, and I was chided 
for not showing the diplomatic passport which 
I had and thus taking precedence over my tired 
fellow passengers. 

I unwittingly slipped one over on the Cus- 
toms, for in my suit case I had about 500 
American cigarettes on which I supposed I 
should either have to pay duty or claim diplo- 
23 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

matic exemption. However, the officer with 
whom I was traveling put his hand baggage 
down next to mine and the French examiner 
opened two of his pieces, none of mine, assum- 
ing that they all belonged to my fellow traveler, 
and I went gayly and guiltily away. 

We arrived at Paris at one in the morning 
of the 29th of January, and at nine that night 
received our first intimation, from the measure 
of personal realization, that we were in a war- 
ridden country. 

Some three or four of us went that evening 
to the Gaumont Palace Theater, over in the 
Montmartre neighborhood, to a moving picture 
performance. As we came out at the end of 
the show we noticed that the city was darker 
than usual and that there were crowds of peo- 
ple in the streets, watching the skies. Pencils 
of white light streaked the heavens and there 
seemed to be a rapt attention in the air of all 
the low-voiced French speaking people whom 
we passed. 

We went down through the gloomy streets 
24 



INTRODUCTORY 



of the Montmartre district, stumbling from one 
curb to the other, and wondering when we 
might hear the crash of falling bombs and the 
reply of the French anti-aircraft guns. We 
made an uneventful trip over to the Place de la 
Concorde and came out there into the still dark- 
ness of a winter night, which was interrupted 
only by the flashing rays of the many search- 
lights, which constantly shifted from one part 
of the heavens to the other. After standing 
there for what seemed to me an indefinite length 
of time, we heard the Paris fire engines going 
through the streets sounding their horns, and 
in addition the *'brelocque," which is the French 
Army "recall" and means that the danger for 
the time being is over. 
The "Brelocque" 



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^*-^-^- 



• • • p p 



5^ 



i 



-#-^-«-«- 



t=^V- 



Z_(t_!_^_S)- 



The French "Recall' 
25 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

This ended my first day on French soil. 

Of necessity, my earher days in the French 
capital were given up to adjusting myself to 
conditions there, to finding how I might be of 
the best use and familiarizing myself with 
conditions as they existed in relation to official 
life and my chances for obtaining the informa- 
tion for which I had been sent abroad. 

After about a week I was notified that I 
would be received at the War Department as an 
accredited representative of our Government, to 
be introduced there by our military attache, 
who would present my credentials and introduce 
me to those who might further my aims in 
France. 

To any one who has business with the 
French War Department the contrast with 
our own methods in this western democracy 
must be very striking. In Washington, prior 
to war days, any citizen of our free republic 
had the privilege of walking unchallenged into 
the War Department and was only possibly 
halted at the door of the office to which he 
26 



INTRODUCTORY 

sought admission. In France things are de- 
cidedly different. The War Department in 
France, the building in which is housed the 
machinery which is running so large and com- 
plicated an organization, is unpretentious, 
rather out of repair and does not compare at 
all with our own ornate building in Washing- 
ton. It seems a queer setting for the cunning 
genius which is, and has been, directing so fine 
an attack and defense against the invading 
Hun for the period since 1914. 

We were challenged at the gate, a very se- 
cure gate, at the entrance to the War De- 
partment by a reservist in red "pants" (very 
red), with a long mustache (very long), who 
scrutinized very carefully the specific written 
pass which we had and, after his approval, ad- 
mitted us to the labyrinth of dusty winding 
stairs, which took us eventually to a courteous 
Major of the French service; who chatted very 
amiably with the Military Attache and, as I 
understood, promised in a general way to afford 
us the facilities which were usually granted to 

rt 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

representatives of a neutral country. From 
his office we went to another one, where we 
were presented to an equally charming French 
Staff Colonel, who renewed the assurances of 
good fellowship but made us no definite prom- 
ises. In fact, it seemed to be a recognized 
part of the game that, while we were to be ac- 
corded all courtesies and every possible op- 
portunity for the gleaning of information, it 
was probable that we could not rely to an ex- 
cessive extent on the overtaxed resources 
which had other things to do, rather than to 
explain to the curious bystander why they were 
doing them. 

This was my introduction to my duties as 
an Observer in France. Added to this, I found 
that it was difficult for me to understand the 
rapid, careless French of the Parisians and evi- 
dently more than difficult for them to under- 
stand my best attempts at their own language. 
Fortunately, for the sake of my mission and 
its fulfillment, in due course of time the rapid 
stream of French which at first meant so lit- 
28 



INTRODUCTORY 

tie to me, fell into a more or less orderly se- 
quence and I was able to mend many of the er- 
rors of my early days, both those of omission 
and commission. As an evidence of helpless- 
ness during my first experiences in and about 
Paris, I might cite my system of getting from 
one place to another. 

The American policeman is replaced in Paris 
by the "Agent de Police." He is sprinkled 
about Paris with about the same frequency as 
the American "copper" is in our own cities; 
his duties are those of our own police ofBcers, 
and his manners are tinged with the true po- 
liteness of the French, and if he does not ex- 
pect it, at least he appreciates a military sa- 
lute, whether one be in uniform or not. 

When hopelessly lost, I found that my best 
way was to approach one of these dignified 
Agents de Police and, in the best French I could 
command, ask him for directions in regard to 
the place I wanted to go. If he understood me 
(which he did about half the time), he imme- 
diately launched into a voluble explanation. I 
29 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

paid no attention whatever to this and let my 
mind wander to any extraneous topic: Ty 
Cobb's batting average, who would win the 
Yale-Princeton game that fall, or anything else 
that came into my mind. When he reached 
the end of his explanation, however, I became 
instantly intent, for at the conclusion of his 
directions he was always sure to point in some 
direction, and, following the lead of his out- 
stretched hand, I thanked him courteously in 
French and started off in the direction which 
he indicated. After having gone as far as I 
considered safe, I hunted up another Agent de 
Pohce and worked the same game on him. In 
this way, by what I suppose one might call a 
semaphore system, I was enabled always in 
broad daylight eventually to work myself from 
one place to another. If the condition had 
occurred in the night when I could not have 
seen my policeman friend, all my knowledge of 
spoken language would have availed me little 
or nothing. 

Realizing my shortcomings in the French 
30 



INTRODUCTORY 

language, a knowledge of which I had 
foolishly supposed I possessed when leaving 
the United States, I sought quarters at once 
with a French family, none of whom had any 
acquaintance with English and who were will- 
ing to attempt to instruct me in the intricacies 
of French as it is spoken in Paris. The ac- 
quisition of French under such circumstances 
is not entirely a bed of roses. Sanitary im- 
provements in France are not on an equal plane 
with those to which the average American is 
accustomed. The French find no di.nculty in 
keeping their houses at least as warm as the 
temperature outdoors ; beyond that, they seem 
to have no particular interest. The house in 
which I lived during a severe winter had no 
heat in it with the exception of a gas fire in 
the kitchen to cook with and was guiltless of 
any bathing facilities. When one felt the ne- 
cessity of a bath, there was always the French 
public bath establishment available for a cer- 
tain, not excessive, fee. 

I know many people who cheerfully state 
31 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

that if they went abroad they would imme- 
diately seek quarters of this kind in a French 
family and learn French. I doubt very much 
if they understand what the whole thing means. 
To be a guest with people, who, although 
kindly, considerate, interested and thoroughly 
sympathetic, have a different viewpoint in re- 
gard to almost everything, makes the situation 
a little trying. In addition to this, to be in 
an atmosphere which is murky with an unknown 
language which is constantly dinned into your 
ears, leaves one's brain tired and fagged be- 
yond expression at the end of the day. 

My good landlady used to come in and talk 
French and read French to me in the morning 
while I had my early coffee. She captured 
me at noontime and talked French to me aU 
through my midday meal. On any of my free 
days she appropriated me to go with her to 
points of interest in Paris and to listen in the 
meantime to the rapid flow of very perfect but 
badly understood Parisian French. I went 
to the theater with her on my free evenings. I 
32 



INTRODUCTORY 

met all her friends who came to call on her. I 
was taken to call on all her French friends and 
by them, in turn, upon all their friends. None 
of them spoke any English. I lived in a be- 
fuddled atmosphere of a language in which I 
was constantly groping and never sure of mj 
meanings. I made mistakes, they misunder- 
stood what I wished to say, and, all in all, it 
seemed a most discouraging proposition. 

I remember one or two despairing occasions 
when I had been all day battling to keep mj 
chin before this French flood, when on my re- 
turn from some French excursion of this sort 
I made a plea that I had collars to buy or a 
friend to see and my last ray of hope was 
choked off by the cheerful assurance of madame 
that she was not at all tired and would go 
with me. 

The above is not a complaint, but merely 
a suggestion that the acquisition of a practical 
working linguistic knowledge which one as- 
sumes that he has, may not always measure up 
to the standards which he has set for it. 



CHAPTER n 

GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE OF THE FRENCH 

I SUPPOSE at the present time there is no 
doubt in the mind of any one in the civihzed 
world that the Germans in 1914 were the most 
perfectly prepared of any of the nations for a 
state of invasive warfare. The French were 
prepared, but still in the midst of many im- 
provements in the perfecting of their war ma- 
chine which had not been brought up to date. 

Along with other things, the Sanitary 
Service of the French was still in a condition of 
transition. By "Sanitary Service" I mean the 
whole measure of the French for caring for 
their sick and wounded, the same thing which 
is covered in our own service here in America 
under the direction of our Medical Depart- 
ment. In 1910 a decree had been issued by the 
French making decided changes in their Sani- 
34) 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

tary Service, and when the war broke out in 
1914) these changes had not been thoroughlj 
incorporated into their system of army organ- 
ization. Of necessity on this account there was 
a certain amount of initial disorganization in 
the care of those wounded or sick amongst the 
army forces in the early period of the war. 

To give some idea of what the French Sani- 
tary Service, the organization that cared for 
their wounded, covered, it might be well to un- 
derstand some of the arrangements the French 
made for this purpose during times of peace. 

Of course every one knows that aU French 
subjects are liable to military duty, obligatory 
military service. All France in times of peace 
is divided into "regions" — there are 21 of these, 
all told, in the Republic — 19 in continental 
France proper and 2 in Morocco and Algiers. 
During peace times each of these regions is oc- 
cupied by a French Army and military com- 
mand is vested in the commander of that army. 
During times of peace certain precautionary 
measures are taken through the Sanitary de- 
85 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

partment in each of these regions. That is to 
say, the French have looked forward to a pos- 
sible invasion of their country ever since the 
war of 1870 and have been shaping their af- 
fairs by the light of that occurrence. The 
sanitary matters in each of these regions were 
organized partly under the strict supervision 
of the regular medical department of the army 
and partly through the intermediary assistance 
of the French Red Cross. 

At the time of mobilization the command of 
these regions passed from the commander of 
the mobile army, who went with his forces, and 
was delegated to an officer of the reserve or 
one who was beyond active military age, and 
upon his shoulders fell the responsibility for 
the putting into operation of the measures in- 
stituted in times of peace for the care and 
reception of wounded which might result from 
the war. 

This meant, in fact, the selection in each 
region of a certain number of buildings, schools, 
where available, and large public buildings, or 
36 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

anything' of that sort which would be readilj 
adapted to the care of the sick, and the draw- 
ing up of plans leading to their rapid trans- 
formation for the purpose intended. In addi- 
tion to this, the Red Cross undertook to fur- 
nish a certain amount of supplies for the main- 
tenance of these hospitals, and they were stored 
in each district, although not necessarily in the 
hospitals themselves. 

In regard to personnel, the medical person- 
nel from the standpoint of the Red Cross was 
practically nil. This can be readily under- 
stood when we consider that France was living 
under a system of compulsory military serv- 
ice. All men of military age, whether medical 
men or otherwise, were subject to draft on the 
mobilization orders issued at the commence- 
ment of hostilities, and this left no opportu- 
nity for any surplus personnel of a non-military 
type to be used to man these hospitals. On the 
other hand, the Red Cross Societies trained 
and educated a certain number of women who 
were competent, to a limited degree at least, 
37 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

for the duties of nurses. All this was France's 
reserve in event of just such an occurrence as 
the invasion bj Germany in August, 1914. 

As I have stated before, this organization 
was not completed at that time in accordance 
with the decree of May, 1910, and in the early 
days of the war there was undoubtedly much 
hardship due to this fact. As time went on, 
the French realized that the conflict was not a 
matter of months but one of a considerable 
length of time, the various defects were reme- 
died, the sanitary machine and personnel ham- 
mered into shape and brought to work with the 
most excellent efficiency which characterizes it 
to-day. 

For instance, after the battle of the Mame 
in September, 1914, there was lacking trans- 
port by train, by horse-drawn vehicles, and 
most notably by automobile transport. There 
were not nearly sufficient hospitals to receive 
and care for the large number of wounded which 
came from the battle of the Marne and the 
French retreat preceding this. As a natural 
38 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

consequence, there was much improvisation and, 
as would naturally be expected, this makeshift 
method did not stand the test and gave very 
evident proof, not only to the Medical Depart- 
ment itself, but to the generality of France, 
that rapid improvement in the whole system of 
caring for the sick and wounded was a very 
imperative necessity. 

France took this matter very seriously, as 
was indicated in the report of a High Com- 
mission authorized by the Chamber of Deputies 
and commonly known as the "Reinach" report, 
which, by the way, forms very interesting read- 
ing in regard to this subject. 

Dating from this period, conditions in re- 
gard to the care of sick and wounded fell into 
more orderly lines, and errors in the assignment 
of personnel and the utilization of various vol- 
unteer organizations were more clearly classi- 
fied, and the whole system was put upon a more 
orderly basis. 

The French had at this time, that is to say, 
after the battle of the Mame, found the ne- 
39 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

cessity of sending a great number of their 
wounded far into the interior to be taken care 
of by the volunteer organizations already re- 
ferred to. They found from actual experience 
that in this practice one of two conditions ex- 
isted. Either the men did not receive the pre- 
cise and careful treatment that they needed, 
or, through an excess of sympathy, they were 
over-treated and were held at the rear for a 
longer time than was necessary, so that the 
fighting forces at the front were unnecessarily 
deprived of the services of men who should 
have been returned long before the period of 
their actual arrival. 

A French medical officer, in commenting on 
this situation to me, remarked: "The armies 
melted like snow and many who were furloughed 
to the interior disappeared like rabbits in the 
underbrush." It is unnecessary to say that, 
after a short experience of this kind, the French 
realized that some more practical method had 
to be evolved, and this was the beginning of 
40 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

the present workman-like system which leayes 
very few able-bodied men unaccounted for. 

With the present system I think it is safe to 
say that the most important thing in the sani- 
tary scheme is that comprised in the Freach 
word "triage," which means "sorting." You 
hear it everywhere in connection with the oper- 
ation of the service, and in addition to being a 
method of classification, it is a careful and con- 
tinual check on the movement of the wounded 
and disabled. After the experience gained by 
sending the non-effective back into the Zone of 
the Interior, the French cast about for a more 
logical method of caring for them. It was 
decided that the best thing for both the State 
and the individual was to shorten as much as 
possible the time between the receipt of the in- 
jury and the curative means employed. The 
percentage of recoveries was higher when 
wounds were treated within some hours after 
their infliction than if days intervened, and in 
this way lives were conserved not only for the 
benefit of the individual, but to the advantage 
41 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

of the army as a further addition to the fight- 
ing force. In the second place, it minimized 
very much the evil of absenteeism which I re- 
ferred to and which at one time was a serious 
problem for the French to face. 

The outcome was that the majority of the 
cases were held in the Zone of the Armies and 
there, under direct Military authority, they 
were not lost nor delayed in their return to their 
organizations. With this idea the various 
units of the Zone of the Armies were developed 
and built up. The Evacuation Hospitals came 
to be, in part at least, true hospitals and not 
merely forwarding points. The Ambulances 
of the First Line took more formal care of the 
wounded than before, and throughout the Zone 
of the Armies the Surgical centers were de- 
veloped and in them patients were grouped who 
would have been scattered under the old system 
throughout the Zone of the Interior. 

I spoke a few pages back of the part which 
the French Red Cross plays in the care of the 
sick and wounded. It seems to me that there is 
42 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

here, in the United States, a good deal of mis- 
understanding as to the real function of this 
society during time of war. With the French it 
is almost exclusively employed in regions other 
than of actual conflict. The Red Cross nurse in 
the poster, she of the winsome face and spotless 
uniform liberally adorned with the insignia of 
the society, caring for a wounded man amid a 
hail of shot and shell, is, as a matter of fact, 
replaced by some hairy and probably dirty- 
faced Brancardier whose military duty it is to 
get himself killed if need be while he brings in 
his wounded brother of the line. Common 
sense would seem to indicate that the fringe of 
a battlefield is no place for a woman. I have 
no desire to impugn their courage, but it just 
is not a woman's job any more than it would 
be for them to take rifle and grenade and go 
charging forth to attack the opposing lines. 
There are some instances where women have 
maintained aid posts and rest and comfort sta- 
tions close to the lines and they have done the 
work well, but the greater part of the duties 
43 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

wkidt must be performed on or near the front 
lin<!s fall to the hand of man rather than to 
those of the gentler sex. 

As it has been with "the French, so will it be 
witk our own forces, and the adventuresome 
amd plucky girl who goes abroad with the idea 
of work of this character will probably be dis- 
appointed. This does not mean that those who 
nurse with the army are free from risk, for the 
Boche, in the persistent idea of undermining 
ihe allied morale, still sticks, and probably will 
continue to stick, to the plan of bombarding 
and bombing buildings protected by the Red 
Cross with the same indifference that he dis- 
plays in regard to any question involving right 
and wrong. Nurses and medical officers have 
been killed in a number of hospitals under these 
circumstances and there is no probability that 
any of the Sanitary Units which work within 
gfum range or easy flying distance of the Ger- 
man lines will have any immunity from attack. 
Hie determination of the personnel which is 
available for the Sanitary Service of the French 
44 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

is not a difficult matter. No more so thas the 
determination of the personnel of the Armj, 
since both are dependent on the law of uniTersal 
service. 

The Regular — standing — Army of France is 
fixed by law at a certain number both as to the 
commissioned and enlisted personnel, and ia the 
event of the outbreak of war this does not in- 
crease as such, but remains the same. Tfee 
increase is made in the personnel which is called 
to the colors from the citizens of the land yrko 
have been trained for this duty by the period 
of compulsory service and the yearly maneu- 
vers. The medical profession has no exemption 
(neither has the clergy) from this duty, and 
if a doctor is not needed in his own character 
he goes to make up part of the combatant 
force. As a matter of fact, with the high wast- 
age in the Sanitary Service there has been oc- 
casion not only for all the graduates in medi- 
cine, but the French have made use also of cer- 
tain of the medical students who have completed 
enough of their work to be of actual serriee 
45 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

with certain units in the field. These are termeii 
the '*Medecins Auxiliares," and are of very real 
value in the work of the corps. 

In time of peace each man who has com- 
pleted his training knows to what provisional 
regiment he is assigned and each officer, medi- 
cal as well as combatant, has his sealed orders 
which he is to open if war is declared and which 
will give him directions as to where to report 
and to whom. General mobilization orders are 
prepared also and are stored in the barracks 
of the "Gendarmerie National," or State Po- 
lice. When the State decides to call forth the 
forces, the necessary data, date and place, etc., 
are filled in at the barracks of the Gendarmes 
and the proclamations, or orders of mobiliza- 
tion, are all posted throughout the country at 
the same time. Care is taken so that these re- 
serve regiments are made up of the inhabitants 
of the region, and the consequence is that all 
who are called are supposed to be at the depot 
or place of assembly within twenty-four hours 
after the mobihzation order has been posted. 
46 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

As to the medical personnel of a regiment, gen- 
erally the senior officer is one selected from the 
regular establishment to give balance to the or- 
ganization and the others supplied from the re- 
serve who come under the mobilization. 

In addition to those Medical Officers who are 
needed for the care of the Regiments, there are 
of course a number who are required for other 
organizations. To meet this requirement there 
is kept in the office of the Chief of the Sani- 
tary Service a list of the Medical persoimel 
which is available and from it is drawn the num- 
ber required for extra-regimental requirements. 
In this reserve army there is no limit; those 
who are needed are called and on the cessation 
of hostilities they revert again to an inactive 
status. The effect is that every able-bodied 
man in France is a potential defender of the 
State and that he must stand ready to drop all 
else and give his services to the common need. 
The education of these Reserve Medical Offi- 
cers is that which is acquired by any prac- 
ticioner of medicine plus the term of required 
47 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

•errice, three years with the colors. Under 
these conditions any man called from civil life 
has the advantage that he does not go from 
the patha of peace to the ways of war with only 
a hazy idea as to what the duties of a soldier 
are. He has had, so to speak, a magnified 
Plattsburg and comes to the ways of the serv- 
ice with less timidity and more confidence than 
if it were altogether terra incognita. For the 
Medical Officer of the Regular Army admis^ 
•aoQ is by way of the schools at Lyons, or else- 
where. The young man who decides to make 
Blilitary Medicine his career matriculates at the 
Medical School at Lyons and takes the same 
courses there as do his civilian brothers, but in 
addition to this he has extra work given by the 
Military Faculty in the same place and he lives 
daring the time of his study under Military 
oontroL 

This school is organized to train five hundred 
•r more students and the proportion of ac- 
cepted candidates is generally about 10 per 
cent. The applicant for admission must be un- 
48 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

Her twenty-four years of age, the possessor* of 
a Baccalaureate Degree and have had one year 
in a recognized Medical School. If accepted 
after physical and mental examination the stu- 
dent receives the grade of **Aspirant," which 
is equivalent to a warrant grade. After admis- 
sion to the school he is assigned to a Regiment, 
usually Cavalry, as a private, and serves there 
with no medical function for one year, after 
which he returns to the school and takes up his 
professional work. The course is three years in 
duration and the work is intensive. Those who 
pass the examinations are commissioned as 
second-lieutenants after they receive the Medi- 
cal Degree and are then sent to the Military 
Hospital, Val de Grace, in Paris, where they 
receive practical instruction for eight months 
and are then assigned to regiments and ranked 
in accordance with their standing. Promotion 
to the grade of first-lieutenant is automatic 
after one year, or four months after the course 
at Val de Grace, and relative standing is de- 
pendent on the grading in the final examination 
49 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

in this hospital. Promotion thereafter is by 
selection rather than by seniority, but no one 
can skip a grade and, unless an officer has shown 
some unusual aptitude or brilliance, it is not 
usual that he be advanced over the heads of 
many above him. There are authorized one 
thousand Dentists, who are not commissioned, 
and the Army Nurse Corps is fixed at one thou- 
sand also. There is agitation to increase the 
number of Dentists and naturally the number 
of nurses is entirely insufficient to meet the de- 
mands of war-time conditions. 

The direction of this service lies in the hands 
of a civilian who is a member of the French 
Cabinet. He is titled the "Under Secretary of 
State for Sanitation," and in spite of the "Un- 
der" in his designation he is practically autony- 
mous in his position and his decisions in his own 
Department carry authority. Prior to the war 
one of the General Officers of the regular Medi- 
cal Service held this position, and at present 
two of them act as aids to the Director. I think 
it is doubtful as to whether the change in direc- 
60 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

tion has been a gain and that it is problematic 
as to whether the system does not sooner or 
later revert to its first status. The head of all 
the service centers with the Director in Paris 
and branches throughout the different armies 
and regions which are affected. 

The Service of Supply, as well as that of 
replacement of personnel, is based on the plan of 
echelon and a marked feature is the numerous re- 
serves of both men and material which are main- 
tained at various points in the chain which 
stretches from the Interior to the ultimate limits 
of the fighting line. It simplifies the system of 
supply, for all that is required of any supply 
depot under this system is to see that the supply 
in the depot is kept at the normal level, and each 
one calls on the one behind it to replenish what 
has gone on to the unit in front. Thus, the 
Brigade supplies the Regiment and draws on 
the Division for replacement ; the Division, after 
supplying the Brigade, depends on the Army 
to refill its stores and so back to the Central 
supply Depots in the larger cities of the Zone 
51 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

of the Interior. This obviates the necessity 
for the repeated transfer of requisitions and the 
chance of delay due to congestion in traffic or 
delay in approval or other usual causes. It 
is simple and effective. 

It is difficult to give in so brief a space any 
adequate idea of the complexity of the ma- 
chinery which is evoked in the care of an army 
under field conditions. We must understand 
that it is not only the question of caring for 
the wounded man. That is the apex of the 
pyramid, the object of the entire procedure, but 
as we multiply the one man by "X" the pyramid 
descends to its base with a wide angle and we 
find that many questions which do not at first 
occur to us have to be considered. Transpor- 
tation, supply, records, construction, feeding, 
preventive medicine and many other things fall 
in line to make up the perplexing whole. And, 
withal, everything must function with a certain 
degree of smoothness and be fairly automatic, 
for unless the wastage is promptly and care- 
fully made good there will not be fighting men 
52 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

enough to carry on and the State will have to 
divert too much of its energy to the care of 
its non-effectives. 

As an evidence of the magnitude of the task 
which falls to the lot of the Sanitary Service 
in war, I may state that in one operation which 
lasted for three days the casualties were esti- 
mated at 90,000. A proportion of these were 
killed, to be sure, but even that involved duty 
in burial and in completion of the records, and 
the remaining fraction leaves us with the im- 
pression that although it is a tremendous task 
to maneuver in battle large masses of troops, 
it is by no means easy to collect and put in 
shape again those who have fallen in the at- 
tack. 

The accompanying diagram shows graphi- 
cally, and In a general manner, the path fol- 
lowed by the woimded man from the first Hue to 
whatever point he be destined. The work of the 
front line trench is carried out by the Regi- 
mental personnel, both Commissioned and en- 
listed, and this personnel is augmented by the 
53 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

band, provided there be one in the Regiment. 
The duty of the Regimental personnel is fin- 
ished when the wounded are delivered to the 
First Aid Post, which has its own personnel 
for the care of the cases which come to it. The 
route of the wounded soldier from this point 
may be by several means of transportation. If 
he is to be carried by hand, this duty is taken 
up here by the Divisional Group of Litter 
Bearers, which is distributed in accordance with 
need by the Division Surgeon. He may go di- 
rect to the Automobile Surgical Ambulance if 
he is a bad case, or he may be taken to one of 
the Ambulances of the first line to be shifted 
possibly from there to the unit just referred to. 
If able to walk, his problem is simplified and he 
makes his way on foot. In certain instances 
it is possible to evacuate the first aid posts by 
automobile direct, and sometimes when it is not 
possible for the automobiles to approach the 
Post, a Collecting Station (not shown in the 
Diagram) is established in a sheltered position 
in the rear of it and the wounded evacuated to 
54 



!?•■ aid I30i/- 







Jl^i^a/rf. 



— / V«' 






-or 

'li'-L/nc Ath4,. 






^^^,\~)Evacu.a.tion Hospital 



Dspah of. - 




Contagions Haspital 



■ ; Re^wlaTiTi o StcLti'on ^ 







ar^e Ton-ze 




^ - n 1 I I n I _ 

Te;r,pcrary Tirnp, Heap. [±3 

Q.I4.X, Hasp, 

Diagram Illustrating the Routes of Evacuation of 
THE Wounded from the Front Lines to the Zones 
OF the Interior. 



55 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

it by hand litter and there picked up by the 
automobiles. It is not unusual in a busy sector 
to keep an automobile constantly stationed ia.t 
such a point to take care of those who need 
immediate transfer. It must be remembered 
also that all the units of the trench line system 
are intimately connected by telephone, and that 
it is not a difficult matter therefore to call for 
transportation when required. 

The automobiles which are charged with this 
duty of evacuation are furnished by one or more 
sections which are ordered to certain sectors for 
duty in accordance with the intensity of the 
action. A Section consists of twenty cars and 
the capacity of the cars runs from three lying 
cases for the Ford type to five in the latest type 
of the French ambulance with the Kelner type 
body. With the capacity known and the mile- 
age to be covered in the run and the average 
speed possible, a pretty accurate estimate can 
be made as to the time necessary for the evac- 
uation of any number of wounded. The Firs*- 
Line Ambulances may retain their mobile func- 
56 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

tion and serve merely to care for the wounded 
until they are taken to units further in the 
rear, or they may become fixed, the "Ambulance 
Imobilizee" in French terminology. To accom- 
plish this latter end a supplementary section, 
known as the section of hospitalization, is sent 
up from the Divisional reserve and added to the 
mobile ambulance. It comprises both addi- 
tional personnel and materiel and serves to 
transform the mobile unit, with its compara- 
tively meager equipment, into the equivalent of 
one of our Field Hospitals. 

When the necessity has passed, this reinforc- 
ing personnel and materiel is returned to the 
Division reserve and the Ambulance reverts to 
a mobile status again. The Automobile Sur- 
gical Ambulance and the first line ambulances 
send cases to the Evacuation Hospital, which 
may be at a Railhead and must of necessity be 
on a railroad. These Evacuation Hospitals 
are made up of two sections, either one of which 
may function independently, or both combine to 
make up a more formal organization. If they 
57 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

function separately, their province is more 
that of a collecting and sorting point than of 
a Hospital proper. I have spoken of this in 
preceding pages, and of the important part 
which these hospitals now play in the Sanitary 
scheme. 

At the Evacuation Hospital, of whichever 
type it be, the wounded are disposed of in one 
of several ways. If there is a hospital section 
attached to the Hospital, they may be trans- 
ferred to it for treatment until they are in 
condition to be sent back to their units again. 
There may be a Hospital Center in the neigh- 
borhood, and in that event they may be trans- 
ferred by automobile to one of the hospitals 
which compose it. There are usually one or two 
Ambulances in the neighborhood also which can 
care for a certain proportion of cases. In con- 
nection with this hospital there is also a Depot 
of Convalescents and "Ecloppes," as the French 
call those who have not much the matter with 
them. This Depot serves to relieve the hospital 
of those who are well enough to dispense with 
58 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

formal care but not yet strong enough to go 
back to active service. In addition to this there 
is at each Evacuation Hospital the materiel 
and personnel to make up two Sanitary trains. 
At this Hospital the Sanitary trains are load- 
ed and routed to their destinations. There is 
usually a daily train, and in times of activity 
the number increases. These trains are made 
up so that there is the minimum amount of 
transfer of the wounded carried by them. So 
far as possible trainloads are made up to go 
entire to some definite point and thus it is not 
necessary to break out cars for different points 
nor to disturb the wounded until they have 
reached the point of final debarkation. This 
simplifies matters considerably, and makes for 
the comfort and well-being of the wounded. Be- 
fore a train is started word is sent to the point 
to which it is routed and arrangements are 
made there to meet it at the hour specified and 
to dispose of its load in accordance with the 
number of vacant beds in the hospitals of the 
Region. The Director of the Line of Com- 
69 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

munication is kept constantly informed by the 
Surgeons in charge of the different hospitals 
and Regions of the number of available beds in 
each one so that in routing his trainloads of 
wounded he knows exactly what he can count 
on in the way of resources in any one place. 
This system has grown up with the experience 
in the transfer of wounded and is a long step 
ahead of the rather crude and somewhat hap- 
hazard method which prevailed at the outbreak 
of hostilities. The wounded shipped by train 
to the interior are inspected at various points. 
Particularly at the "Gare Regulatrice," or Reg- 
ulating Station, which usually is at the junc- 
tion of the Zone of the Armies and the Zone 
of the Interior. It is the duty of the Medical 
Officer in charge at this point to see that no 
case goes beyond it which should be retained 
in the Zone of the Armies and that those who 
are forwarded are in proper shape for the 
journey. Now that the Sanitary Trains are 
more formal in character and manned by an ex- 
perienced personnel this duty is less exacting 
60 




Red Cross Nurses at a Railway Station Canteen Giv- 
ing Coffee to the Wounded. 




Tent Wards, Showing One of the Type of Tent Used 
BY the French. 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

than when the Regulating Station stood as the 
real check on what had been done at the point 
farther forward. 

On the line of Railroad at appropriately 
spaced intervals are Railroad Rest Stations 
and Railroad Canteens. Stops are made 
at these and the wounded fed and ex- 
amination made of their condition. These can- 
teens are in charge of the Red Cross and the 
feeding is quickly and systematically done so 
that there is little delay in the progress of the 
wounded. A train may be diverted to one of 
the Regional Hospitals, or group of Hospitals 
as shown in the Diagram, or it may continue 
to a large town which is a center for a number 
of Hospitals where there is provision for not 
only general care of the wounded, but for the 
various specialties which may be needed by in- 
dividual cases. In addition to the two Zones 
listed in the Diagram, there is another known 
as the Zone of the Line of Communication. 
This comprises the Railroad and the adjuncts 
to it. That is to say, the right of way, the 
63 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

various Rest Stations and Canteens and the 
Hospitals which are connected directly with it. 
Xhe administration of this Zone is an impor- 
tant post and upon the efficiency of the Director 
depends to a large extent the smooth function- 
ing of the service further to the front. It is 
presided over by a General Officer and he has 
his staff which includes a Chief Surgeon and 
various Inspectors who are charged with the 
duty of seeing that all measures dealing with 
the care of the wounded and sick are properly 
performed. This includes not only the ques- 
tion of transfer, but that of supply of per- 
sonnel and materiel and the maintaining of 
proper reserves at the designated points. 

The diagram does not show the full com- 
plexity of this service in the Zone of the Line 
of Communication, for there are many minor 
points which, while essential to the proper func- 
tioning of the whole, are too much a question 
of detail to be brought out in a general scheme. 
A little thought will make evident what they 
are: the question of the channels of the vari- 
64 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

ous orders, which secure an orderly correlation 
of the various fractions which go to make up 
the whole ; the maintenance of the railroad sys- 
tem which is charged with the transfer of the 
wounded ; the provision of the proper quota of 
rolling stock for this end in each part of the 
combatant area; the management of the auto- 
mobile and horse-drawn transport; the assign- 
ment of personnel to the various units. These 
and many more go to make up a problem which 
requires careful and intelligent handling to en- 
sure good results. 

We, on this side of the Atlantic, have 
been rather prone to plume ourselves a 
good deal on our superiority in the 
matter of Rail transport and to look on the 
Continental system as perhaps inferior to our 
own. Shortly before I left France something 
was brought to my attention which made me 
doubt whether this supposed superiority of ours 
was in reality so very marked. It became nec- 
essary to arrange for the transport of a large 
number of troops and the movement was to be 
65 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

executed with as little delay as practicable. 
Word was sent by the Director of Railways to 
the General Manager of one of the Railway 
systems, stating the requirements and asking 
how soon the Company would be able to start 
trains, what headway they could be run at after 
they had started and for how long a period the 
service could be maintained at that, the maxi- 
mum rate. The answer came back very 
promptly that the Company would be ready to 
start the first train in three hours, that after 
the first train had left they would run others 
with half an hour's headway, or as fast as they 
could be loaded, and that they would maintain 
this service and schedule as long as was neces- 
sary. The Company not only made this state- 
ment, but they lived up to it. It seems to me 
that when we consider that this was done in a 
country in a state of war and with necessarily 
depleted equipment, we might consider it as a 
very creditable piece of railroading not only 
for Continental France, but for our own coun- 
try. 



GENERAL SANITARY SERVICE 

The Sanitary Train has been a source of 
some embarrassment for the French. The Euro- 
pean type of car does not lend itself well to the 
purpose, and they have been obliged to exer- 
cise a good deal of ingenuity to meet the situa- 
tion. The Continental "carriage" is short, 
about half the length of our regular passenger 
car, many of them have separate compartments 
opening with side-doors and no communication 
one with the other. The use of this type has 
the disadvantage of interrupting communica- 
tion through the train which is a serious objec- 
tion for a service of this kind. Some of these 
cars have been adapted by the use of special 
apparatus and with telephone connection, but 
the more practical type is the baggage car, 
which in addition to the side-doors has an end 
door also which does away with the bad feature 
of the other class. There are several trains 
made up of the long baggage cars of the Inter- 
national Type which run on the Expresses 
from Paris to Nice, and these easily lend them- 
67 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

selves to the required purpose but are too few 
in number to take care of all the traffic. 

Any attempt at description of the various 
phases which go to make up the complex whole 
of this system of care of the sick and wounded 
must inevitably lead one through a maze of de- 
tail. Each step carries one to a fork where 
the subject branches and each branch further 
subdivides until one unexpectedly finds himself 
perched on the ultimate twig and perhaps far 
from the object which he set out to pursue. 

The rather brief summary which I have at- 
tempted will, I think, serve to show the magni- 
tude of the task, and the thought and patient 
care which has been exercised in working out 
and putting into operation the present system 
which, while probably susceptible of further 
refinement, is still wonderfully efficient in the 
care of large numbers of helpless men. 



CHAPTER III 

HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR: 

Certain terms have by constant use come to 
have an accepted and clear meaning to those 
who are engaged in the serious game of war on 
the other side of the Atlantic. 

Our interest in the affairs "over there" has 
brought a knowledge of these terms overseas 
to many of us, but it may not be amiss to state 
in a general way how the territory of France 
is divided for the time and uses of war. 

iTo begin with, there are two general divi- 
sions. A line is drawn, not in accordance with 
any fixed geographic boundaries, but in ac- 
cordance with the exigencies of the situation, 
and all territory on the side nearest the enemy 
constitutes "The Zone of the Armies." That 
behind this is the "Zone of the Interior." While 
all France is really under Military control, the 
69 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Zone of the Armies is the special province of 
the Mihtary. All entrance into it, all exit from 
it and aU movement in it is governed and sanc- 
tioned by the "Grand Quartier General," or 
Great General Staff, which is presided over by 
the **Generalissime," or Supreme Commander 
of the fighting forces ; at the present writing, 
General Foch. Incidentally, that name is pro- 
nounced "Fosh," with the o long as in "Oh." 
This Zone of the Armies has other subdivisions 
which will be spoken of later. 

The Zone of the Interior comprises the rest 
of the country that is not needed by the active 
War Lords and is presided over by the Civil 
authorities so far as ordinary matters go, and 
by the Minister of War when it comes to a 
question of strictly Military jurisdiction. 

In this Zone of the Interior are the ultimate 
repair shops for the damaged human machines 
that have been put out of commission at the 
front. They filter back to these just as pow- 
ders are graded through a series of sieves of 
varying mesh and it results that only the very 
70 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

severely hurt (from an economic point of view) 
come to them. 

By this I mean that when there is any prob- 
abihty of returning a soldier to the firing line 
as an effective within a certain length of time 
he is held within the Zone of the Armies, at 
one of the large Hospitals there. When he has 
lost a leg, an arm, or is otherwise permanently 
disabled, or when his cure must take more than 
the allotted time, he goes back to the Zone of 
the Interior and is placed in the Hospital best 
suited to his particular needs. 

Three years of war have made a vast dif- 
ference in the orderly disposition of cases as 
well as in other matters and now the French 
have in addition to their general hospitals a 
chain of others fitted for the treatment of all 
sorts of specialties. 

There are fracture hospitals, hospitals for 
head cases and brain surgery, those for the 
burned, for nervous diseases and a host of 
others, and in this way each man is assured of 
coming under the charge of the practitioner 
71 



,THE DOCTOR'S PART 

who makes a specialty of caring for his par- 
ticular malady or injury instead of carrying 
it as a *'side line" with his general work. 

These hospitals are now carefully organized 
and under strict Military control. After the 
battle of the Mame, when the French were 
swamped by the wounded, they had to make 
use of every facility and the consequence was 
that a good many private hospitals were opened 
by well-meaning but not always responsible peo- 
ple and that the army suffered in consequence. 
In some the care was not all that it should have 
been and in others the lack of discipline and 
careful check resulted in the loss to the fight- 
ing force of a very appreciable number of men. 
Realizing this, the French shut out these pri- 
vate institutions and recognized only those 
which were under the three authorized Societies 
which go to make up the French Red Cross. 
With this innovation things moved in a more 
orderly manner and to-day the progress of a 
wounded man is no longer a matter of con- 
jecture and his location and condition are 
72 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

known at all times to the War Department. 

One of the Hospitals of this class which, while 
not a large one, must always be of interest to 
Americans, is what was formerly the Ameri- 
can Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly, a suburb 
of Paris. This was started in the early days 
of 1914 by Americans then resident in Paris. 
It was situated in a school building which at 
that time was just completed and grew from 
modest beginnings to an institution of some 
700 beds. 

In addition to taking care of the wounded 
it served the admirable purpose of training 
many young medical men in the new surgery 
which this new method of conflict has made es- 
sential. In it our Yankee specialty of Den- 
tistry took on a new dignity and under the able 
leadership of Doctor Hayes in conjunction 
with the Surgical service, some very wonderful 
work was done, and is being done, in the res- 
toration to a semblance of something human 
those suffering from the terribly disfiguring 
wounds of the face. 

73 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

It is a little difficult in the quiet walks of 
peace to realize just what can happen to a 
man's face as the result of shell wound and still 
leave him alive. Ahve, but a living horror to all 
who see him and he himself, a despondent 
wretch. If you can figure to yourself what a 
man is with no nose, with no lower j aw, or only 
half a one, with a face that looks like a man- 
gled beefsteak, you can appreciate what it 
means to patiently build him up again almost 
from the beginning and turn him out, scarred 
and seamed to be sure, but not an object that 
children would run from screaming. It is a 
work that calls for infinite patience, both on 
the part of the operator and the wounded man, 
for this is not done at one fell swoop, but means 
many weary months and sometimes as many as 
twenty or thirty operations. They borrow 
pieces of rib and bits of shin-bone and make 
new noses of them; they twist and pull and 
coax adjacent tissue until it covers the gaps 
and they bridge in vacant areas by skin grafts 
until finally the unfortunate wretch comes forth 
74» 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

somewhere in the shape that God made him. It 
is the very antithesis of war ; an upbuilding to 
meet a tearing down: construction versus de- 
struction, and is a work that any member of 
the profession cannot but regard with pride. 

I had been one day at one of these interest- 
ing if sanguinary operations and at its con- 
clusion went into one of the "face wards" to 
see the progress in a case which I had seen oper- 
ated on some time before. 

In one of the beds, splinted and bandaged, 
I noticed a cheerful looking mulatto, with the 
French War Cross on the left breast of his 
gray pajamas. His white teeth flashed in 
laughter, and he was chattering away in rapid 
*'Poilu" French to his neighbor, a youngster 
who looked as though he might have come from 
the South of France — the "Midi" — that land of 
sunshine and fair skies — the country of "Tar- 
tarin of Tarascon." 

Of course it is absurd, but I think we of the 
United States are apt to assume that all the 
Sons of Ham are compatriots of ours. We do 
75 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

not quite realize that France's colonial hold- 
ings have given her also a proportion of the 
dark aliens. Anyhow, the brown-skinned sol- 
dier looked so much like home that, after wan- 
dering by his bed several times, I wheeled on 
sudden impulse and, standing at the foot, said, 
"Boy, what's your name?" He ducked his 
woolly head and with a flash of teeth, chuckled 
in a tone that meant some place south of Mason 
and Dixon's line, "Sam Brown, suh, Sam Brown, 
tha's ma name." 

I walked around and sat down in the chair 
between him and his French neighbor and con- 
tinued my investigations. "For the love of 
Mike, Sam Brown, where did you come from, 
how did you get here and what are you doing?" 

"Me, Major? Ah come fum Galveston^ 
Texas." (I knew he did, or he would not have 
put the accent there.) "Come ovah on a cahgo 
boat, 'bout a yeah and a half ago, and I 'listed 
up with the French ahmy and I'se a sho-nuf 
Poilu now and they done give me the Croix de 
Guerre. Yas, suh, I'se a French soldier." 
76 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

And I told Sam Brown that I had been sta<- 
tioned in his Gal»^*ton when I got my order 
to come and see what he and the other Frenck 
poilus were doing, and we chattered of people 
there, and he told me how he was wounded on 
the Somme ("Sum," he called it), and the lit- 
tle French neighbor from the Midi chipped in, 
and we gossiped away, sometimes all three in 
French and sometimes just Sam Brown and I — 
two soldiers from the Great Republics — in plain 
American, not English, and the little French- 
man from the Midi told me what a good "Co- 
pain" Sam Brown was, and Sam returned the 
compliment, and we three had a delightful 
twenty minutes. I left them money for cig- 
arettes, wished them both "Bonne chance" and 
left as Sam Brown assured me, "Ef you hadn't 
a spoke to me, Majah, I should have spoke 
to you, 'cause even if I as a Frenchman, that 
unifohm looks mighty good to me." 

In answer to my inquiries, they told me that 
Sam Brown was a brave soldier and a cheer- 
ful patient. 

77 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

That is one of the saving graces of these 
collections of maimed and injured men — al- 
ways somewhere in the atmosphere of pain pa- 
tiently borne, of suffering endured without a 
cry — there is a rift in the clouds, and the sun- 
shine of human interest, of gentle comedy 
breaks through to turn to gold for a minute 
the red stains on the bandages. 

It is not hard to learn a lesson in cheerful- 
ness from these wounded men, and I can think 
of no better cure for the man or woman who 
deplores his luck than to watch some man 
lopped of an arm or a leg, as he patiently 
tries to make the best of his artificial substi- 
tute and with a cheerful grin swears queer 
good-natured soldier swear-words, both at its 
stubbornness and his own clumsy efforts. 

Suppose, Mr. Man, that the next time you 
are peevish because James has left a bit of shell 
in your breakfast egg, you figure on what it 
would mean if you had no James — only an 
awkward left hand and arm to do his job. 

I think one of the best examples of the un- 
78 




Mutilated Soldier Learning to Engrave with an 
Artificial Hand. 




Soldier with Double Amputation of the Arms^ Show- 
ing How Much May Be Accomplished with the 
Artificial Hands. 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

failing spirit of these wounded men was at the 
"Hopital du Pantheon" over on the left bank 
of the Seine in Paris. It was in the old quar- 
ter and in a building that had for many years 
been used for Hospital purposes. 

I was invited there by a surgeon renowned 
for his skill in surgery of the head. The case 
was a man who had been wounded by a high 
explosive shell and had a fragment of the shell 
casing in his brain, in the middle line and about 
halfway from forehead to the back of his head. 
As a consequence of this unsought intruder he 
was developing a paralysis of arms and legs 
and it was considered essential for his well- 
being that the fragment be removed. 

He was a husky peasant, and aside from the 
halt in his gait as he entered the operating 
room and the look of embarrassment at the 
sight of the medical men there assembled to 
see his operation, there was little to differ- 
entiate him from the average "PoUu" one sees 
on the Boulevards of Paris. Due to the fact 
that this was an operation on the brain he 
81 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

did not have, in his ordeal, the benefit of ether 
or chloroform. It was, with the 'exception of 
the physically deadening effect of the cocaine, 
what one of our leading papers would denounce 
as "Tivisection." 

He came into the operating amphitheater 
with proper dignity, was seated at the end of 
the table on a stool, his head bent forward and 
lest in a moment of uncontrolled nervousness 
he might rebel, his wrists were lashed and he 
bowed his head forward on the table. 

The whole thing was done under local anaes- 
thesia (cocaine or one of its derivatives) and 
he was entirely conscious during the whole 
time of the operation. This consisted in open- 
ing the skull, cutting through the membranes of 
the brain and then extracting the fragment of 
shell which had been the cause of his trouble. 
This fragment was in the brain itself. He 
was perfectly cognizant of what was going on 
during the entire time of the operation, but he 
never moved: whether he was in pain or not, 
no one save he himself knew. When everything 
82 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

iras completed and he raised his face, streaked 
with the blood which had run down from the 
wound in his scalp, the first thing he did was 
to turn to the Surgeon who had operated on 
him and say with steady quiet courtesy, "My 
Doctor, I thank you a thousand times." A 
little later he walked, serene and unshaken, back 
to his ■w»ard and his bed. It seems to me a 
hard task to beat down a National spirit which 
is made up of such men as this, and he was by 
no means exceptional in his quiet fortitude. I 
am glad to say that he made a perfect recov- 
ery and has probably long since gone back to 
that Hell of the front lines, there to do his bit 
and wait what fate shall bring him. 

I spent three weeks in another hospital in a 
little town not a great way from Paris, on the 
Seine, where almost all the work was that of 
the treatment of fracture cases. "Fracture" — 
a broken bone, brings to most of us the picture 
of a distorted limb, but not as an invariable 
accompaniment, torn and mangled flesh as well. 
Fracture as the result of artillery fire means 
83 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

always this damage to the flesh and almost in- 
variably an infection of some sort. And just 
as the fracture itself is complicated, so in the 
same ratio is the treatment. It needs skill 
and ingenuity and patience and a large amount 
of that sixth sense which God has given to 
women — intuition. 

Dr. Joseph A. Blake presided over this 
Hospital and in his constant dealing with this 
class of injury had evolved an ingenious and 
most efficient system of splints and suspension 
which made for quick and satisfactory healing 
and left the patient free of the torture of some 
of the older and more cumbrous apparatus. 

The wards devoted entirely to the fracture 
cases were a forest of uprights and cross-pieces 
traversed in all directions by cords running 
through pulleys and at the ends of the cords 
dangled sandbags and weights like some queer 
fruit in this conventional grove. It was known 
familiarly as "The Machine Shop" and refer- 
ence to the two accompanying pictures bears 
out, I think, the aptness of the nickname. 
84 




Fracture Ward in Blake's Hospital, Commonly 
Known There as "The Machine Shop." 




A Fracture Ward. 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

The cases which reached this hospital were 
of the class I have referred to — those which 
were either hopelessly out of the game, or would 
require more than the allotted five weeks for 
their restoration to duty. It was also a ''sur- 
gical center." That is to say, the operating 
was done in this one hospital save for minor 
work, and the cases as they improved were 
transferred to one of several others in the vi- 
cinity where they finished their course and 
were sent either forward for further service, or 
back for discharge from the army. I saw here 
an interesting case. The man was apparently 
shot directly through the heart according to 
the testimony of the wounds of entrance and 
exit. Yet he walked a mile before he received 
his first dressing and recovered after an un- 
eventful course. Of course it is possible that 
there was one of those curious deflections of 
the bullet by the ribs, but even so, and grant- 
ing that the heart was untouched, it was re- 
markable that the man was able to walk the 
87 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

distance that he did and that his recovery was 
so uneventful. 

As in all the hospitals at that time the work 
had been systematized so that from the time 
of the reception of a wounded man until the 
date of his transfer or discharge there was 
practically no lost motion. 

The wounded for this particular chain of 

hospitals were received at , where they 

came by train from the hospitals nearer the 
line. It was interesting to see the methodical 
way in which they were received and distributed. 
I went over to the receiving point once to see 
the process. A telegram had been received 
saying that at such an hour a train of 89 
wounded would arrive. This was received long 
enough in advance to make it possible to deter- 
mine as to what proportion of cases should be 
sent to each of the hospitals of the group and 
the various ones were notified that they would 
be called on that afternoon to receive so many 
wounded men. At the appointed time the am- 
bulances of the group were at the station and 
88 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

Blake and other representatives to maJke the 
apportioning. The train was a "permanent" 
Sanitary train, made up of the short conti- 
nental box cars, each one fitted with apparatus 
to hold eight cases on stretchers. The plat- 
form of the freight station where they were un- 
loaded was level with the car doors so that re- 
moval of the stretchers was an easy matter. 

On the cement platfrom were three posts, 
each one bearing the initial of the hospital 
which it represented. When the train stopped 
all the cases which were able to walk were 
herded together in one place to wait their dis- 
tribution. The cases on the stretchers were 
brought out of the cars and placed in a long 
row on the platform. Each one of the wounded 
bore on one of his coat buttons the diagnosis 
tag from the front which showed what his in- 
jury was and what had so far been done for 
him. Blake, who was the "Medecin Chef," ex- 
amined the cases, beginning with one end of the 
line, and decided to what hospital each one 
was to be sent. He stated the name of the 
89 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Hospital and an orderly who was with him fas- 
tened to another button a tag which bore the 
initial of that hospital. At once two French 
orderlies took the litter and carried it to the 
post bearing the same initial, and there the 
ambulance orderlies collected the cases, put 
them in the waiting ambulances and they were 
carried to their destination. The cases which 
could walk were dealt with in the same way 
save that they went to the lettered posts under 
their own steam. There were in attendance 
women of the French Red Cross who gave the 
men coffee, wine, oranges and cigarettes. 

The distribution was systematic and rapid, 
the process beginning as soon as the wounded 
were unloaded from the train, and some of those 
first taken off were on their way to clean sheets 
and good care before the last of them had left 
the train. 

The entire process did not take more than 
twenty minutes and seemed very business-like 
and practical. It was, in reality, the "stock 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

yard" method and made for an accurate and 
rapid sorting of the wounded. 

On a man's arrival at the hospital he was 
first cleaned up, and then, if not too fatigued, 
taken to the X-ray room, where a careful ex- 
amination of his injury was made and recorded 
for the surgeon who would receive him as an 
operative case. The majority of cases were not 
photographed, in the actual sense of the word. 
They were examined by the fluoroscope, which 
enabled the man in charge of the X-ray work 
to determine the nature of the lesion and to 
furnish such data as would be required for 
operation. Cases out of the ordinary run, or 
those which showed pieces of shell remaining 
in the tissues, were photographed and a chart 
also made showing the exact location of the 
foreign body. Surgery of the present time is 
very dependent on the X-ray, and not only on 
that but on various types of what are known 
as "localizers.'* 

There are several types of these : one a mag- 
net, which when brought in proximity to a piece 
91 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

of steel is strong enough to cause a movement 
of the fragment which is perceptible to the 
iingers on the part. Others which have a tele- 
phone adjustment for the ears of the operator 
and a probe which on contact with the shell 
fragment or bullet gives a distinct clicking 
sound, the loudness or faintness of the click in- 
dicating to the surgeon whether he is "hot or 
cold" as we used to say in the childhood game. 
From the X-ray room the wounded man goes 
to the ward for rest unless his case is urgent, 
in which event he is transferred direct to the 
operating theater and the necessary work done 
for him at once. 

One is apt to think of a hospital as a neces- 
sarily depressing place, the abode of suffering 
and the place of not infrequent death. That 
is true as far as the suffering goes, not so 
now, fortunately, as to the frequent death, al- 
though with war wounds there is no escape from 
a certain percentage of fatalities. The one 
thing which cannot be killed is the innate cheer- 
fulness and good humor of the French soldier. 
92 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

He may be drawn and white from the pain of 
a dressing or the ache of the operation, but 
give him time to compose the quivering nerves 
and his gayety comes to the surface again anci 
he is ready to poke fun at himself or any one 
else — and any one is fair game. There was 
one youngster in the "Machine Shop," which I 
have alluded to, who interested me, and I used 
to stop and talk to him every day in my rounds 
of the ward. He was laid up with a shell frac- 
ture of his left leg and right arm and was swung 
in a maze of pulley ropes and weights. Despite 
his incumbrances he was always cheery and 
managed to do for himself very handily. We 
used to chat each morning; I in my best French 
and he in the rapid talk of the Poilu with more 
or less slang intermixed. After I had known 
him for about a week, he turned to me one day 
and archly asked me, "Say, Major, what's 
the matter with us talkin' United States ?" We 
did after that, and I found that the young 
scoundrel had been bom in New York of French 
parents, lived there all his nineteen years and 
93 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

had come to France because he felt the call 
of the Fatherland, He had been amusing him- 
self in a good-humored way with my imperfect 
French, and I suppose had been chuckling over 
the fact that he was as much an American as 
I. I daresay it amused his comrades, too. It 
did not at all interrupt our amicable relations 
and the only difference it made was that there- 
after I deprived him of the satisfaction of lis- 
tening to my attempts In his own French 
tongue. 

There was, for the other side of the picture, 
one death in that ward which seemed sadly 
pathetic to me. He was a strong peasant, 
about forty years of age and so badly Injured 
that at his age he had not the vitality to fight 
it through. I watched him go along the road 
that leads over the big divide, each morning 
finding him a little weaker in spite of his evi- 
dent desire to win back to a maimed existence. 

One morning I came into the ward to find his 
people there and to be told by the ward sur- 
geon that he had only a little time to last. The 
94 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

Doctor had no French and asked me to do 
what I could to comfort the poor souls who 
had been summoned there by the news that 
their son and husband was to give the great 
gift for his country. 

I did the best I could, and I trust that what 
I said to them helped a little. They were pa- 
thetic peasant folk in awkward black, with 
lined brown faces and hands hardened by much 
toil. They were dignified in their grief and 
made no outcry; just the dumb look of suffer- 
ing in their faces as the breath halted and the 
laboring chest rose and fell and finally became 
still. One could know what it meant to them; 
the loss of a good son, a well-loved husband. 
And yet when it was all over and the poor tor- 
tured soul had gone to the God who created it, 
they turned to me and, with fine courtesy, 
thanked me for my words of sympathy, and as 
they turned to leave the ward the old father 
turned to me with his patient face, and straight- 
ening his bent shoulders, looked at me with the 
tears in his eyes and simply said, *'Eh bien, 
95 



THE DOCTOR'S PAKT 

Monsieur le Majeur, c'est pour la France." In 
spite of grief and the sense of loss they could 
yet realize that the life they had loved was 
given for a cause that was sacred in their eyes 
— for their country. 

A hospital in a small town rather dominates 
the life of the village : everything centers about 
it and in the absence of the industry of peace 
times it is an important factor in an economic 
sense. In the village where this hospital was 
situated, as in all the others in France, man 
power was at a minimum, and among the rest 
the village doctor and the pharmacist had gone 
to war. As a consequence the good people were 
dependent on the personnel of the hospital for 
their care in sickness and for the remedies 
which they required. This care is everywhere 
freely given and in similar conditions it is as 
much the duty of the Medical force of the hos- 
pital to look out for the civilians as to care 
for the wounded. It is fortunate that it is so, 
for with no other help available there would 
be much hardship among those who had only 
96 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

to watch and wait for the return of the men 
at the front. 

In view of this, there grows up a close re- 
lationship between the inhabitants and those 
who care for the wounded. During my three 
weeks in this little town I had a room in a quaint 
little French inn and in a very short time I was 
on friendly terms not only with the old man 
and his wife who presided over it, but had a 
speaking acquaintance with most of the people 
of the village. They quickly learned what my 
uniform was and, although at that time I was 
a neutral — apparently — I met with nothing 
save a fine and simple courtesy. 

The French peasant class are as a rule a cour- 
teous people and transactions with them carry 
much more ceremony than that with which we 
endow our daily comings and goings in these 
busy United States. For example, the purchase 
of my daily paper from the old lady who kept 
the stationer shop was formal to this extent. I 
entered the shop, tipped my cap and said, 
"Good morning, Madame, it is a fine day." 
97 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

"Good morning, Monsieur le Majeur; it is in- 
deed." "The Matin, if you please, Madame." 
"But certainly. Monsieur, and thank you." 
Then I gave her a fifty centime piece and she 
said "Thank you, Monsieur." When she gave 
me the change I said "Thank you, Madame," 
and I bowed myself out with a duet of "Bon 
jour, Madame," and *'Bon jour. Monsieur le 
Majeur." I suppose that we have not time for 
all that in our own busy materialistic Republic, 
but it lends a touch of friendliness to the minor 
things of life and is pleasant when you know it. 
Probably one of the best known and certainly 
one of the oldest hospitals in Paris given over 
to Military use is the Val de Grace. There is 
some very fine surgery of the face done there 
by Dr. Moreston and the progress of the cases 
is illustrated not only by photographs at dif- 
ferent stages, but there is in the museum a 
collection of masks made in wax and colored, 
which though grewsome in themselves are very 
beautifully done and illustrate very strikingly 
what can be accomplished in this difficult 
98 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

branch of surgery. In addition to caring for 
sick and wounded this hospital has other func- 
tions. The young men who have finished the 
course at the school at Lyons in preparation 
for entry into the regular Medical Corps of the 
Army are sent there for a final course before 
being sent out to active service, and, further- 
more, the army nurses are also trained in the 
same institution. Here, also, is situated the 
Laboratory where the serum used to protect 
against Typhoid and the two analogous fevers, 
the para-typhoids, is prepared. 

This is a very modern and up-to-date plant, 
and if we consider that all the men of the French 
army have been immunized with serum manu- 
factured here it is easy to comprehend the mag- 
nitude of the work. At the time I visited the 
laboratory, in company with Vincent, who is 
the head of it, he told me that they were not 
only turning out all that was required for their 
own forces, but were supplying Belgium, Rus- 
sia, and sending some to Italy. The serum has 
proved its efficiency, for since the early days of 
99 



THE DOCTOR'S PART , 

the war, before all the army had been inocu- 
lated, typhoid has continued to be a negligible 
cause of illness. That it is potent I have cause 
to know from personal experience, for in spite 
of the fact that I had gone through typhoid 
as a young man and that I was beyond the 
required age, I took the inoculation — and 
cussed both Vincent and his serum, for in 
addition to its protective power it has a 
very unholy "kick." If any suffering citizen 
is protected against enteric fever I surely 
should be. 

There is, near Paris, in the suburb of Issy-les- 
Molineaux, a hospital which is interesting both 
on account of the character of the injuries 
treated in it and from the results obtained by 
the treatment. It is the "Hospital San Nico- 
las" and in it a service has been turned over to 
Dr. Barthe-de-Sandfort for the treatment of 
men who have been burned. 

There are a number of these cases arising in 
the Military service, and contrary to expecta- 
tions, the majority of them are from other 
100 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

causes than the German *'Liquid Fire." The 
cases treated from this cause are rather infre- 
quent. Why this is so I do not definitely know, 
unless it be that those who are burned in this 
manner generally succumb. It may be men- 
tioned in passing that the Allies do not view 
this form of warfare very seriously; they take 
it as a manifestation of German frightfulness 
and state that it has little real tactical advan- 
tage. 

There were about two hundred beds occupied 
by the burned cases at the time that I visitedf 
the hospital at Issy and together with them were 
a number of cases of "Trench Foot" which were 
stated to do well under the treatment. Trench 
Foot is much like frostbite and the resultant 
injury much resembles it. I saw during my 
visit there burns of all degrees of severity, and 
was impressed by the apparent comfort of the 
method for the patients and the excellent results 
obtained. The remedy itself is proprietary; 
that is to say, Barthe-de-Sandfort refuses to 
disclose the formula, holding it for financial 
101 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

gain. Under the ethics of the European coun- 
tries this is viewed under a different light than 
with us. 

The treatment consists in the application, to 
the dried surface of the burned area, of a liquid 
preparation wliich contains paraffine and some 
other undetermined ingredients. This seals up 
the burned area and heahng goes on under it 
with great comfort to the patient and with a 
most excellent final result. There is less scar 
resulting and consequently less deformity. 
Some of the completed cases were remarkable 
when compared with their condition on entry 
in the hospital. 

Whatever be the ethics in regard to the treat- 
ment, it seems to me that there is little doubt 
that it is an effective method of dealing with a 
distressing form of injury. 

I quote this method mainly as an evidence of 
what the changed conditions of modern warfare 
have demanded in advance in Medical and Sur- 
gical procedure. The increased skill in inflict- 
ing bodily injury has evoked a measure of in- 
102 



HOSPITALS OF THE INTERIOR 

genuity in the science of repair, and this is 
manifested not only in this matter of the treat- 
ment of burns, but in the many other special 
methods and devices for the better repair of 
the wounds of war. 



CHAPTER IV 

THK ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

As I have mentioned before, continental 
France is divided by an arbitrary line into two 
general divisions — the Zone of the Interior and 
the Zone of the Armies. In this latter Zone 
are the majority of the Military Hospitals, not 
all of which are subject to gunfire since this 
zone extends from the first lines back to the 
ultimate edge where the two zones join. This 
Zone of the Armies is further subdivided into 
three regions: the Zone of the Advance, which, 
as its name implies, is that of the actual fight- 
ing, the place of the combat: the Zone of the 
Rear where reserves of personnel and materiel 
are maintained for the reinforcement of those 
at the front, and the Zone of the Line of Com- 
munication, which is the traffic route by which 
104 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

these reserves are brought forward and hj 
which the wastage is sent back for repair. 

The character of the Medical service, of the 
Hospitals, depends on which one of the three 
different subdivisions they happen to be located 
in, the more formal as a matter of course being 
more removed from the actual fighting. Some 
of the hospitals of the latter type are of par- 
ticular interest and have occupied a more or 
less prominent place in the public press and 
have come to be pretty well known in this man- 
ner to the average reader of the news. One of 
these is Carrel's Hospital at Compiegne. 

Most of us know of Carrel : of his association 
with the Rockefeller Foundation; that he won 
the Nobel prize, and that recently he has estab- 
lished in New York a hospital for the demon- 
stration of his method of the treatment of in- 
fected wounds. It would not, I presume, be 
good taste for me, to discuss the pros and cons 
of his methods and as a matter of fact that is 
hardly a function of any writing as non-tech- 
nical as these pages. 

105 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

It was my good fortune to spend some time 
with him in the winter of 1916 and I found my 
visit both pleasant and profitable. In speaking 
of it I quote from a running diary which I kept 
during my tour in France, as events recorded 
therein are more sharp than if I trust to a 
recollection blurred somewhat by the passage of 
two years' time and many other events which 
have occurred since that visit. 

"The 21 and 22 of February I devoted 
to a vigilant and persistent pursuit of a *Camet 
des Etrangers' in order that I might have the 
right to come here to Compiegne. 

"I finally succeeded in running it down in 
some Nth Bureau of the French War Office on 
the Boulevard Saint Germain. A 'Carnet des 
Etrangers' is your Passport into the Zone of 
the Armies. It is a little red book, in the front 
of which is pasted the worst possible postage 
stamp picture of yourself and under it inscribed 
a kennel register of yourself which takes you 
back as many generations as you can remember. 
The rest of the book is devoted, with French 
106 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

thoroughness, to information on every subject 
except how to beat an egg in hot weather and 
contains forms appropriate to every occasion 
except, perhaps, a christening. Without it you 
cannot go anjrwhere, except to bed, and you 
must do that within the limits of the Zone of the 
Interior. 

"When the proper form is duly filled out, 
stamped and sealed by the 'Grand Quartier 
General' you can go — exactly where it says you 
can: if you go anywhere else you are 'off side* 
and liable to be set back and severely penalized. 
Also you must show it to everybody on demand, 
save the Fire Department, and I am not quite 
sure about them. I had to show mine four 
times between Paris and Compiegne and each 
official looked more suspicious than the last 
until I finally began to doubt my own integrity 
and became as red as the book each time I pro- 
duced it. You see I was in citizen's clothes, as 
a representative of a neutral Government, and 
it is hard for any Frenchman to understand 
why any person described as a man of Military 
107 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

rank should be concealed in a brown sack suit. 

"I left Paris at 8 :05 from the Gare du Nord. 
The morning was cold and dreary and the out- 
look from the train soggy and disconsolate. 
The Oise was bank full and overflowing and 
every one looked bedraggled and down at the 
heels. Even the red pantaloons of the old ter- 
ritorial soldiers who guarded the right of way 
looked less cheerful than they should. At 
Creil, which was at that time the dividing line 
between the two general Zones, a very thorough 
canvass was made of all passengers on the train 
to make sure that no unauthorized person was 
irrupting into forbidden territory. 

"I arrived at Compiegne at about 11 and 
came up to the hotel followed by a hoary old 
Frenchman who puffed along with my luggage 
and had such a luxuriant growth of whiskers 
that all he needed was three decoys and a cup 
of water to make him look like a duck blind. 
Compiegne has been shelled by German 280 and 
820 mm. guns from time to time and there are 
ruined houses to bear testimony to the fact. 
108 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

"Established at the Hotel Palace, I went to 
take my letter of introduction to Carrel at his 
hospital at *Rond Royal.' This was in the 
piping times of peace a hotel, but like many 
structures of that kind it has changed its sphere 
of usefulness as the normal life of the state 
has been turned upside down. The hospital is 
not a large one, having a capacity of something 
like a hundred beds, and Carrel does not claim 
for it any great value as a large factor in the 
care of the wounded. It is in reality his labora- 
tory, where with the wounded for his material 
he is working out the best method, in accordance 
with his views and experience, of putting them 
back again in the minimum of time, healed and 
fit for more of war's alarms. The place is par- 
tially supported by an appropriation from the 
Rockefeller Institute, so that things are on a 
more easy scale than if it were dependent alto- 
gether on the resources of sadly tried France. 

"There was plenty of everything: beds, 
nurses, linen and all the essentials which make 
for the comfort and well being of the wounded. 
109 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

I could not but feel that the soldier who was 
brought here to be cured of his hurts was par- 
ticularly favored. 

"Carrel hirhself does no operative work. He 
is the general administrator of the institution 
and has a supervising eye on the cases and the 
progress of the method which he is advocating 
in the disinfection of wounds. Briefly, and not 
too technically, the 'Carrel-Dakin' method of 
treatment — sterilization, he calls it — of wounds 
consists in the use of a solution of hypochlorite 
of soda. It is a use of what is analogous to 
the familiar 'Javelle Water' which we use to 
take spots from our clothes and stains from 
our hands. But in the use of this, according 
to his method, there is no haphazard employ- 
ment of the chemical : he has determined exactly 
and precisely the percentage of the ingredients 
which gives the best result and any departure 
from the established proportion will not pro- 
duce the end aimed at. 

"The primary step in the process consists in 
what the French term, 'debridement'. That 
110 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

word, if you look it up in the French dictionary 
will be given as 'taking the bridle off a horse*. 
It refers, as the French surgeons employ it, to 
an extensive wound of operation. They open 
everything up wide, clean out all foreign bodies 
and torn tissue and clots of blood and leave no 
hidden corners for the malicious germs to linger 
in. It is rather startling at first sight, but if 
one has any Jesuitical tendencies he cannot but 
believe after seeing the results, that *the end 
justifies the means.' Once opened up aad 
cleaned out, the wound is kept open by gauze 
packing and subjected to a constant bath of 
the Carrel Solution. This is fed into the wound 
by rubber tubes which search out and go into 
all the ultimate nooks and crannies in order that 
there may be no area which is not constantly 
bathed by the hypochlorite. Dressings are at 
first made every day and as the wound becomes 
progressively more free from infection, at longer 
intervals. Cultures from the wounds are takea 
every day at the dressing time and these as well 
as the temperature and the clinical symptonu 
111 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

are the index of progress. When the culture 
is negative, that is to say, when no bacteria are 
found on microscopic examination of the slide, 
the drainage, is removed and the gaping wound 
brought together by strips of adhesive tape, 
and it promptly heals, leaving only a thin red 
line to mark the injury. Of course in joint 
injuries and extensive loss of bone there is more 
marked evidence than this, but in all the cases 
I saw during my visit healing was prompt and 
sure. The question of the adaptability of this 
method for all wounds is not one to be discussed 
here. 

"Eight in the morning is the dressing hour 
and each day I am there to watch the work and 
observe the progress of the healing. The dress- 
ings are most carefully done; not entrusted to 
the nurses, but done by the surgeons themselves 
with due and strict regard to modern surgical 
requirements. It is interesting from a profes- 
sional standpoint, albeit a little sad, this patient 
dressing of the pathetically patient wounded. 
Tliere is one for whom I feel a particular sym- 
112 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

pathy. Robert Deviennes, he is, of the 417th 
Infantry. He may be nineteen, not more: a 
well built, good looking slip of a French lad 
with dark hair and eyes, a straight little nose 
and a facile mouth which I think must hare been 
merry until pain and constant suffering pulled 
the comers down into a piteous droop. On kis 
left leg and thigh he has four wounds varying 
in length from four to six inches ; on the right 
leg, the ends of all his toes are shot away and 
on the same thigh, underneath, is a wound about 
fourteen inches long, open and showing the 
muscles and fascia. If you want to know what 
such a wound looks like, go buy a beefsteak big 
enough for a family of four and lay it on the 
back of your thigh and then try and realize that 
it is a tender, quivering area. He has two other 
wounds that I cannot describe. 

*'Each morning the surgeons pull gauze out 
of and Dush gauze into all those eight wounds 
and sponge them and dress them. And Robert 
Deviennes, of the 417th Infantry, grips the 
sides of his white iron bed and the dark cye» 
113 



TH^. DOCTOR'S PART 

close and the drooping corners of his mouth 
come up to a straight, set line and the olive 
color of his face goes a little gray while drops 
of sweat stand out like tears from a tortured 
system. But Robert Deviennes, of the 417th 
Infantry, does not whimper, for he is not a child, 
but a soldier of France, and he knows with the 
knowledge of his nineteen years how to bear his 
cross like a soldier. And these clever French 
surgeons who poke and prod his quivering flesh 
are making him whole again and before long he 
wiU take his knapsack and his rifle and carry 
his scars back to the trenches to chance other 
shell bursts which may send him back to the 
hospital at Rond Royal, or close the brave 
black eyes and write 'finis' across the book of 
his young life. I wish I might be sure that I 
could bear so uncomplainingly the ills that 
cannot make him cry. 

"They — the wounded — are a singularly un- 
complaining lot ; it is the exception for the pain 
of dressing to elicit even a moan. The hands 
grip tight shut and their faces twist in silent 
114 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

protest, but they keep their breath to breathe 
with and I have never seen one flinch or move 
the wounded member, no matter how keen the 
pain. I think that on the average, they are 
better about it than our men. Why, I do not 
know, for I am sure they have no more courage. 
"There is a pathetic dignity about the 
wounded that is hard to describe. Per se, the 
mutilations are grotesque, but one seems to 
see through them and beyond, to the love of 
country that has made them run these risks, 
and that, I think, helps sustain them through 
the tiresome painful days while patient nature 
fills up again the gaping holes and seals them 
with the flaming scar tissue which is the Red 
Badge of Courage of these, the 'Blesses.' And 
so the man I saw this morning with one leg 
gone just below the knee and the other just be- 
low the hip did not suggest merely the crippled 
remnant of vigorous manhood, but the exponent 
of fearless self sacrifice — of duty done at the 
expense of self and regardless of life or suf- 
fering. 

116 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

"This afternoon I put on a suit of olive drab 
uniform and went over to a General hospital 
about a mile and a half outside of Compiegno. 
As a plain citizen, and so dressed I am toler- 
ated, but to use a colloquial expression, I do 
not 'cut much ice'. To be anybody nowadays 
in embattled France you must have better cre- 
dentials than a brown sack suit and an alpaca 
umbrella. I found that I was taken much more 
seriously in service dress than as an unassuming 
citizen of the Great Republic. 

**I was presented to the 'Medecin Chef and 
he showed me about the institution and answered 
my questions when he could understand them. 
It was *horse and horse' anyhow, for sometimes 
when he understood the questions, I did not 
understand the answers. He was cheerfully 
polite and assured me that my French was quite 
creditable, but I have a sneaking idea that he 
had his fingers crossed and was making mental 
reservations all the time he was complimenting 
me. The hospital had formerly been a military 
barracks and was a big affair of scattered brick 
116 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

buildings which were being adapted to hospital 
use. The process of transformation had just 
been started and there was much to be done 
and my French doctor shrugged his shoulders 
and deplored that I could not have made my 
visit a little later when he had been able to 
evolve some sort of order out of the general 
chaos which was an unavoidable accompaniment 
of the change. He said that there was an in- 
sufficiency of many things, which is not to be 
wondered at when one considers the burden that 
the State has had to assume in the care of those 
who have been hurt in battle. It is the invari- 
able and inevitable rule apparently that no gov- 
ernment can be up to par in the treatment of 
the wounded. It seems that no matter what 
provisions are made they always fall more or 
less short of meeting the conditions with abso- 
lute satisfaction. The existence of the Red 
Cross is evidence of that fact: given perfect 
management, their function would be nil. 

"There were about 1,400 sick and wounded in 
the hospital that day and I was told that the 
117 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

ultimate capacity would be nearly double that 
when everything was in order. The death rate 
at that time was 2% for the Surgical cases and 
5% for the Medical. 

"It rained all the time I was there and the 
impression of the rows of brick barracks was 
rather cheerless and I came away with the con- 
viction that I should rather win back to health 
in the ward at Rond Royal than in this huge 
home of the wounded. 

"I came back in a big Military motor driven 
at the usual rapid rate by a whiskered 'Poilu', 
who told me among other things, that he was 
convalescing from a wound and soon expected 
to go back to his regiment and the front. He 
seemed cheerfully indifferent about it and 
thanked me politely for the pour boire which I 
gave him 'for the wounded'. I am inclined to 
think that he put an entirely personal construc- 
tion on that phrase in consideration of his own 
hurt, and I have also a sneaking suspicion that 
although Major Church in Service Uniform 
rode home in a military machine, Ma j or Church 
118 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

in civilian clothes could have walked in the mud 
and be damned to him. 

"Madame Carrel has donated the band in- 
struments to a regiment raised here and this 
morning we went down to the Place to see the 
regiment march away to the front and the 
trenches, and many of them, I suppose to face 
their Maker in another world. The music was 
spirited and the men looked clean and rested 
and very workmanlike in their horizon blue with 
full kit and rifles with the wicked long French 
bayonet across their shoulders. 

"The shuffling throb of their feet on the old 
French cobblestones beat out an accompani- 
ment to the blare of the band and after it had 
passed, with the head of the column, beyond 
hearing, the beat of the marching tread sounded 
like the pulse of the heart of France; steady, 
strong and determined. There were about two 
thousand of them and they made a long line as 
they filed in column of fours through the old 
square and past Joan of Arc who stood with 
119 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

her bronze hand raised to salute these soldier 
sons of hers. 

"There is something about the whispering 
rhythm of a body of marching men that always 
makes my heart beat a little faster. It may 
be the association, but there is a swing and a 
time to it that is almost music in itself. The 
stamp of heavy shoes on earth or stone marks 
the bass of 4/4 time: the brush of sleeves 
against the sides, the creak of leather gear, the 
mutter of low talk and soft laughter are the 
air in treble, and the tinkle of metal on metal, 
of bayonet and cup, make the arpeggios, the 
running grace notes of this unwritten tune of 
the fighting men. After they had all passed 
and were only a soft echo in the distance, Doc- 
tor and Madame Carrel and Paul UfFolz, who, 
in spite of the strange name, wears the French 
blue and is 'Medecin Principal Premiere Classe' 
and Surgeon of the — Corps which is sta- 
tioned here, came up to the Hotel and had 
luncheon as my guests. It is interesting to 
know intimately a man so eminent in his pro- 
120 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

fession as Carrel. He is short, full figured, 
well set up and fair. He is quite bald and has 
keen blue eyes which behind their heavy lenses 
are gravely thoughtful or mirrors of mirth as 
the discourse changes from sober topics to 
lighter vein. He is clean shaven and has an at- 
tractive mouth which expresses his mood equally 
with his eyes. It is a strong face and an 
attractive one. 

"We talked of many things ; — not the 'ships 
and shoes and sealing wax and cabbages and 
kings' of Alice in Wonderland, but of Medicine 
and the wounded; of Military procedure as it 
affects our profession; of French politics and 
American necessities, and of 'T. R.' whom they 
all admired. They talked in slow French which 
I understood, and in rapid French which I did 
not, and Dr. and Madame Carrel to me in de- 
lightful English with a charming French accent. 
It was altogether delightfully informal and 
human and I felt not at all like a 'looker on in 
Venice' but as though I had been quite admitted 
to the circle. 

121 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

*'A11 day yesterday the sky was gray. The 
wind swept in gusts from the North and whirled 
the snow in glittering 'dust devils' across the 
bare expanse of the Place which stretches from 
my window over to the great Chateau de Com- 
piegne which faced me grim and inscrutable in 
the bleak winter twilight of northern France. 
The Chateau is now a Military Hospital for 
medical cases. The tri-color hangs over the 
gate and French soldiers are on guard in the 
courtyard, and sick in the interior. And so 
the summer palace of the kings and emperors 
has come under the rule of the present master 
of France, — War, with all its stern necessities 
to satisfy. I wonder if the shade of the Em- 
press Marie Louise flits through the salons 
which once were hers, but now are wards for 
the descendants of the soldiers who helped to 
place in power her liege lord, the great Napo- 
leon.'' If it is cold here in Compiegne, I wonder 
what it is out in front twelve kilometers away 
where 'shelter' means protection against sudden 
(death and not from cold: where light comes at 
122 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

night from star rockets and the angry red of 
shell bursts: where men stand in frozen mud, 
sleep in caves and I am sure cannot be ever 
warm. At twelve I was wakened by the roar 
of iron tires on the cobbles of the square in 
front of my window. I got up and looked out, 
but Compiegne is dark at night with the black- 
ness that seeks immunity from hostile air at- 
tack and I could only listen and guess. I know 
it was transportation, and I think there was 
artillery and it was all going to the front. It 
was nearly an hour in passing and as wagons 
make about two miles the hour that would 
mean a good sized convoy. At six this morn- 
ing I was waked again by drums and trumpet* 
and got up to watch with sleepy eyes another 
regiment file out up the fascinating little street 
which is the way to 'the front' and which is at 
present barred to me. About eleven another 
convoy, made up almost entirely of Sanitary 
wagons, stamped with the Red Cross, rumbled 
out and all afternoon stray wagons and auto- 
mobiles have been dodging into the little street, 
123 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

bound, — goodness knows where. And my 
*Carnet des Etrangers' sends me home to Paris 
again to-morrow. Whether this is a normal 
movement or an extension of the action raging 
at Verdun I do not know." 

Another Hospital equally well known with 
Carrel's is that which is administered by 
De Page, at La Panne which is in the little 
remnant which remains of Belgium on the North 
Sea. De Page's Hospital is a larger plant than 
the one at Compiegne and is universally ad- 
mitted to be one of the best on the front. It 
is situated within easy gun fire of the German 
lines but up to date has not suffered very 
severely, although both shells and aeroplane 
bombs have fallen on it. I had the pleasure of 
visiting it in 1916 and came away impressed, 
as I am sure all do who visit it, with the good 
class of work done there and the completeness 
of the institution. There have been numerous 
descriptions of this hospital published and I am 
afraid that if I undertook the same task I 
should duplicate what has already been well 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

done. La Panne in itself is merely a large 
amount of sea sand, spread in a beautiful broad 
beach along the ocean front and back from that 
piled in irregular dunes and sifted in a fine 
powder through the streets of the village to clog 
the footsteps of the pedestrian. The Hospital 
has as its nucleus the Hotel Ocean, a typical 
summer hotel, and about it are clustered the 
wards and other buildings which go to make 
up the total of this institution. Due to the 
contour of the ground, it has not been feasible 
to build a number of small wards, and so there 
are several of 100 bed capacity. These seem 
unduly large to one accustomed to the normal 
capacity of thirty or forty, but there seemed 
to be no difficulty in the administration, and the 
wounded get well in them, which is after all the 
principal and desired function of any unit of 
this kind. 

As an evidence of the completeness of the 

plant I may state that De Pa,ge maintains 

in the hospital, as a part of it, a very complete 

machine shop presided over by competent 

125 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

mechanics, and that they not only repair sur- 
gical instruments and appliances which are used 
up or damaged in service, but they also make 
new ones and exceedingly good ones too. This 
is all done from the raw material and is a great 
help inasmuch as it obviates the necessity for 
ordering from an outside source and the delay 
and uncertainty of delivery under wartime con- 
ditions. The same orderly routine is in evi- 
dence at La Panne as in any of the well ar- 
ranged and well managed hospitals on the 
Western front. The wounded come in to a 
receiving ward and follow a definite channel in 
accordance with their needs. It is what I have 
already referred to as the "packing house sys- 
tem" and is based on the division of labor ; each 
place is charged with certain duties and on 
completion of them sends the patient on to the 
next section. 

De Page ranks probably as the foremost sur- 
geon in Belgium and has associated with him a 
corps of skillful colleagues and assistants and a 
competent nursing force. At the time I was 
126 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

there a certain proportion of this personnel, 
both Medical and nursing, was made up of 
Americans, under the auspices of the Red Cross, 
and in this way a leaven of our own people was 
being instructed in the ways of the new surgery 
of the wai thus to serve as a factor in spreading 
this knowledge through the body of those who 
are now to go and take their own places with 
our own fighting force. 

On a Sunday afternoon while I was there a 
conference of the Medical Officers of the Hos- 
pital and of the surrounding district was held 
in one of the large buildings adapted to the 
purpose. There were about two hundred and 
fifty present; Belgian and French, and I felt 
in a decided minority as the only representative 
of the United States Army. 

The lecture was by an eminent Professor, 
from Ghent I think, and his subject was *'E vo- 
lution" but truth to tell I was more interested 
in watching Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, who 
sat about four feet from me, than in the fact 
that I might have been developed from some sort 
127 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

of a prior form of protoplasmic life. She is 
small, sad faced, rather good looking and dig- 
nified, as I suppose all Queens are. She re^ 
minded me a little of Maude Adams. Alas, I 
did not have an opportunity to meet her and 
I suppose I shall never be so near another 
Queen. She has been much interested in this 
hospital and has herself nursed there. In addi- 
tion to the Hospital at La Panne there is a 
large bath establishment and Laundry whicli 
works for the Belgian Army. The bath house 
provides 1.500 tub and shower baths daily and 
any one who has ever been in the trenches will 
know what a factor to comfort and well being 
this is to the dirty wretch who comes back to 
the rest camp thoroughly dirty and also, alas, 
generally thoroughly inhabited. 

The laundry works for 75,000 men and 
washes 16,000 pieces daily. When you con- 
sider that in addition to the washing, a large 
proportion of the clothing has to be disinfected, 
— de-loused — to put it plainly, this is no mean 
task. 

128 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

This keeping an army clean is a problem in 
itself and many solutions have been tried, none 
of which combines all good features and no bad. 
The large establishment cannot of necessity be 
placed very close to the lines for fear of demoli- 
tion by hostile gun-fire. Smaller units of the 
kind are a proportionately greater expense 
than where there is chance for systematic divi- 
sion of labor, as there is in the larger type. 
Hand work is slow and uncertain and of course 
transport to laundries situated in the back 
areas involves the same old question of trans- 
portation. One thing has come to be estab- 
lished in regard to this work and that is that 
there shall be a community of underclothes and 
in a measure of outer garments too. They do 
not undertake to deliver to the individual the 
things he takes oif. These are started on a 
journey through the machinery which shall 
eventually leave them clean and mended if need 
be, and the man who has cast them from him 
finds when he has emerged from his bath, others 
of the same type which he substitutes for his 
129 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

own. Whether that will work out with our 
men who are given to individual fancies in re- 
gard to what they wear under their uniforms 
remains to be determined. The system is prac- 
tical in that it makes for little delay in provid- 
ing the man with fresh clean linen, and as these 
men are accustomed to a uniform type it does 
not make much difference to the individual un- 
less some luckless runt may happen to draw the 
apparel of some one twice his size and girth. 
In that event however there is chance of appeal 
for a reduction or extension, as the case may 
be. 

I spent the night of my D;oing and of my 
returning at Dunkerque, in the Hotel des 
Arcades which is on the Place Jean Bart. The 
hotel was at that time a mute evidence of the 
pernicious activities of the Hun and most of 
the windows and mirrors had given up their 
shining lives to the fierce bursts of shells or 
bombs. Fritz bombed us both nights I spent 
in the queer little town but did little damage 
on either occasion as the French planes and the 
ISO 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

anti-aircraft guns drove him away before he 
could accomplish much. Most of my visits to 
outlying towns near the front were synchronized 
with Hun air activity and eventually I felt 
rather slighted if I were not awakened some 
time during the night or the gray hours of the 
morning by the combined racket of bombs and 
gunfire. I had the doubtful pleasure of being 
bombed three times in one night in one town and 
distinctly resented what seemed like an entirely 
gratuitous interference with my night's sleep, 
for it is next to impossible either to go to sleep 
or stay asleep with the racket of an air raid in 
progress. There was one air raid which did 
not result entirely in damage to the French. 
In a certain town, not far removed from the 
front lines and within easy bombing distance, 
there had been several attacks directed at the 
Post Office which, under the French system of 
Governmental control, comprised the telegraph 
as well as the service of the mails. They got 
it, I think, on the third night's try : got it good 
and plenty. I was in the town the next mom- 
131 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

ing and the remains of that Post Office were 
scattered all over the street and the entire 
building was a disreputable pile of crumpled 
masonry and twisted iron. The French Officer 
with whom I looked over the ruin admitted that 
Fritz had mussed up their Postal service for a 
day or so, but told me with a cheerful grin that 
they had had the foresight to install the said 
Post Office in a building owned by G. H. Mumm 
who was then looking through the wires from 
the inside of an internment camp for enemy 
aliens and that any material loss for property 
destroyed would be a matter of regret to him 
and not to any good son of France. I confess 
that I did not feel the amount of sympathy for 
Mr. Mumm that I might have if he had not 
always insisted on so high a tariff for his 
product. 

There are a number of hospitals of the type 
of these two located in the Zone of the Armies. 
Many of them are within range of bombard- 
ment, but none of them are located so that 
they will be exposed to constant shell fire. It 
132 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

is necessary to have them as close as is consist- 
ent with reasonable safety, for I have stated 
that it has been proved that a man's chances 
in the present war are much better if he has 
opportunity for prompt operation than if he 
has to be transported for a considerable dis- 
tance with the attendant delay. The French 
have established, also, special hospitals for the 
treatment of particular injuries and presided 
over by men who are specially skillful in the 
treatment of these conditions. In addition to 
receiving and caring for the cases themselves, 
these institutions serve as schools for selected 
Medical Officers who go to them for instruction 
and then return to their Corps or Division to 
act as supplementary teachers to the personnel 
therein. I saw a unit of this kind given over 
to the care and treatment of fracture cases and, 
in addition to the actual surgical work it was 
turning out, men who by reason of the instruc- 
tion received there were specially qualified to 
carry on the work in other localities. 

Still nearer to the front are units of another 
1S3 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

kind : the Ambulances of the First Line, and the 
Evacuation Hospitals. In the first of these 
one sees a different class of cases than those 
encountered at a greater distance from the 
fighting. Here the blood is fresh, and it is in 
these that the desperate cases have their chance 
to win back to some sort of life, or finish for- 
ever the uncertain career of the fighting men. 
In 1916, while the Crown Prince was still 
butting his stupid head against the iron wall 
at Verdun, it was my good fortune to inspect 
some of the Sanitary formations in this hard 
fought sector. At that time, as every one knows 
now, the replenishment of the forces about Ver- 
dun with men and supplies was carried on by 
means of motor transport over the road from 
Bar-le-Duc — the "sacred road" — as it was 
termed. My pass took me to Bar-le-Duc and 
there I had to have my papers countersigned 
and send the motor for a supply of gasoline. 
W^hile waiting for its return I stood on the 
corner in front of Headquarters and watched 
the transportation lumber by. I was impressed 
134 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

by the apparently never ending stream of 
trucks which thundered along in double line, 
one coming from the front and the other going 
out. As a matter of satisfying my curiosity I 
held my watch and timed the passing. As I 
stood there counting, my French officer guide 
came up and after waiting a moment said to 
me, **And how many do you make them?" 
"One every fifteen seconds each way," I an- 
swered. He told me that if that was the case 
they were running on schedule and that if I 
had stood at that corner for the previous three 
months, watch in hand, I should have found the 
same rate of travel, night and day. It is about 
forty miles from Bar to Verdun and one can 
see what that means with a double line of 
trucks running at 15 seconds' headway night 
and day. It seemed as though all the transpor- 
tation in the world was rumbling up and down 
that road. While waiting for the return of our 
machine I witnessed an incident which im- 
pressed me and gave me a clear idea of the 
cheerful loyalty of France to her soldiers. 
135 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Many of the returning trucks carried loads 
of "poilus" coming back from the front for 
their period of rest and recuperation. They 
were stained and worn, covered from head to 
foot with the white, flour-like dust which covers 
everything where the wheels of the camions 
grind the road to powder with their ceaseless 
turning ; but withal they were a cheerful, merry 
set and apparently not too tired for jest and 
laughter. The line halted for a minute and a 
woman leading a little, girl by the hand passed 
in the rear of one of the soldier laden trucks. 
They all hailed her in voluble French and she 
and they tossed the ball of badinage back and 
forth for a few brief minutes and then as the 
procession started again, evidently in answer 
to an appeal and to outstretched hands, the 
woman reached in her basket and tossed up to 
the dusty soldiers one of the big French loaves 
which are such a staple of peasant sustenance. 
They cheered her as they rolled away in their 
aura of golden dust and she and the little girl, 
both clad in black, went their way smilingly 
136 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

and evidently with no regret that a goodly por- 
tion of their supper had gone to the defenders 
of their homes. 

The ride from Bar-le-Duc on towards 
Verdun was more or less of an educa- 
tion. This constantly traveled highway was 
broad and well kept — for heavy transport at 
least — but the smooth surface had been ground 
off by countless solid tires. We passed a num- 
ber of busy steam rollers and all along the en- 
tire route, within speaking distance of each 
other, were men, the older men, patching and 
repairing this artery of travel. They stood 
with their shovels and rakes and at the least sign 
of disintegration in the portion which they 
guarded they threw in a shovelful of crushed 
rock, hastily leveled it with their rakes and 
the steadily tramping trucks beat it down for 
the final repair. At every turn, or crossing, and 
at the entrance and exit of each village, soldiers 
with long clubs were stationed, the military 
police of this busy road. Of course there were 
signs ; signs with French thoroughness which 
137 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

told you exactly what you could or could not 
do. On each side of the road, as far as the eye 
could see, were stacks of supplies: supplies of 
every description and every conceivable sort. 
And all the ground out here was raw, and 
trampled by foot and hoof — and a welter of 
mud. From one hill I counted ten captive bal- 
loons, "sausages" hanging against the gray sky. 

We went first to D , a village where one 

of the First Ambulances was located. Near 
it were parked the automobiles of one of the 
sections of the American Ambulance which was 
busy evacuating the wounded from this always 
busy sector. The hospital itself was located 
partly in the Parish house of the church and 
partly in tents in the yard. Cases were brought 
to it direct from the trenches, less than two 
hours away. The surgeon who was in com- 
mand was a man well known in Paris and he 
looked tired and strained as he showed us over 
his establishment. He said that he had been at 
work here for some months and that the duties 
were exacting, which I could well believe. He 
138 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

was there with one other surgeon as his assist- 
ant and between them they managed about forty- 
operations each day. With me was a member 
of the American Relief Clearing House which 
did such good work for the French and he asked 
if there was anything that could be furnished 
which would make work easier and add to their 
resources. Indeed there was. Although they 
were as well supplied as possible, there were a 
number of things which would add much to the 
efficiency and he named some of them — a larger 
sterilizer for dressings, certain instruments, and 
as he found that his needs did not appal my 
friend he added to his list, growing more cheer- 
ful each minute at the thought of this unex- 
pected help. I may as well state here that all 
the things he craved so wistfully for the better- 
ment of his wounded were shipped to him with 
commendable promptness and I have no doubt 
that he profited by them. With a more cheer- 
ful mien he showed us through his little hos- 
pital. There were wounded everywhere : on the 
operating tables for operation or dressings ; on 
189 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Ktters on the floor waiting their turn and in 
cots in the tent wards. 

Some of the wards were comparatively cheer- 
ful; filled with those who would soon be well 
enough to go and take their places in that 
inferno so short a distance away. Two were not 
so cheerful. One of them housed the gangrene 
cases of which the less said the better. I knew 
what it was before I went in and the peculiar, 
distinctive odor is one that cannot be mistaken, 
nor readily forgotten. The other was given 
over to the hopeless ones who had no chance to 
live; only the hard luck to fight out there the 
brief interval of tortured life left to them. 
There were two sheeted figures in a corner who 
had not yet been carried away and in the little 
time I was in the ward another died. As we 
came out the doctor stopped by a bed where a 
man half sat, half lay against the breast of a 
tired orderly. His whole head was swathed in 
red stained bandages and he beat stiffl}'^ on the 
covers with his hands and called something in 
a muffled monotone which they told me was 
140 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

meant for "water." Both his eyes and the most 
of his face had been shot away that morning 
and he could not swallow. The doctor ordered 
morphine for him and I was glad to come away. 
They told me that the shell wounds were very 
bad and showed a tendency to develop rapid and 
fatal gas gangrene, due presumably to the 
ever present mud which infects all wounds. The 
hospitals of this class count among the cases 
they treat many that one does not see in those 
farther back, since it is to these that the non- 
transportable are brought for such operative 
work as may be advisable or necessary. The 
consequence is that they are much more harrow- 
ing than those which treat men who have re- 
covered from the first shock of their wounds and 
presumably have a fair chance of being restored 
in some semblance of their original selves. The 
roar of the guns was constant here and some 
shells dropped near, but none in our immediate 
vicinity. They told me that a number had fallen 
in the grounds occupied by the hospital, but 
that so far there had been no casualties. The 
141 



•THE DOCTOR'S PART 

ambulance was situated some four or five kilo- 
meters from Verdun and therefore in easy gun 
range of the German fire. It was, all in all, a 
sad and rather depressing place and aside from 
the professional interest there was nothing save 
an unjustifiable and morbid curiosity which was 
a valid reason for a visit to it. 

This type of ambulance is normally a mobile 
unit and travels with the division to which it is 
attached. In order to make provision for the 
cases which cannot be moved, the non-transport- 
able wounded, it is possible to immobilize such 
of them as may be necessary and by the addi- 
tion of a further section one can be turned from 
a unit designed merely for the temporary care 
of the wounded to a First Line Field Hospital 
of the type of the one I have described. When 
the necessity has passed the additional section 
is detached and the normal unit takes on again 
its mobile function. 

Near the Ambulance at D there was 

another first line unit which has come into 

existence since the commencement of the present 

142 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

war. It is known as the Automobile Surgical 
Ambulance, and was designed with the object 
of meeting the condition which I have several 
times referred to, namely the prompt and thor- 
ough operative care of the wounded. The Am- 
bulances of this type are presided over by a 
Surgeon of proved and special surgical skill 
and the personnel is more generous than that 
provided for the ordinary first line Ambulance. 
They are designed for the care of serious cases 
and none others are supposed to be sent to 
them. They are self contained units and all 
their material is packed on trucks so that they 
are available for any section of the line where 
the fighting is heavy and their need imperative. 
They are ingenious in their compactness and 
have proved useful in the solution of a difficult 
problem. One of the trucks is fitted with ap- 
paratus for the sterilization of instruments and 
dressings and another runs an X-ray outfit, 
either in the truck itself, or by the extension of 
the wires, in a tent, or a building if there be one 
which can be utilized. In addition to the X-ray 
143 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

current, sufficient power is generated to light 
the operating room, so that work may go on 
uninterruptedly night or day with good illumi- 
nation. What an advantage this is, any of my 
professional brothers who have stumbled 
through intricate operative work to the flicker- 
ing illumination of lamp or candle, can testify. 
In addition to the paraphernalia necessary for 
operations, there are several knock down bar- 
racks which can be set up in little time and 
used to house the wounded. In addition there 
are tents which can be used to extend the capac- 
ity and with these resources the unit can care 
for a very appreciable number of wounded and 
give them the benefit of prompt and thorough 
surgical intervention. When possible, the 
French set these units up where there is a house 
of some sort and thus get the benefit of better 
construction and housing than if they depend- 
ed on the portable shelter, but they are de- 
signed to be self supporting and to function 
irrespective of any permanent habitation. 
There was no available shelter for the one I 
144 




Operating Room on a "Sanitary Train." 




J. t 




Interior of a French Dental Ambulance. This is a 
Rolling Dental Office, Completely Fitted and 
Mounted on an Automobile Truck. 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

saw near D — — and it was working in the bar- 
racks and tents. 

The operating room was painted white 
on the inside, well lighted and there were 
four or five tables presided over by a 
proper quota of personnel. Here, as at D — — , 
there was an abundance of wounded. AU the 
tables were occupied and there was a row of 
bandaged figures on litters on the floor waiting 
their turn and the verdict of the surgeon. The 
wounds were all bad, for as I have said, it is 
the serious cases which come to these well 
equipped, compact little hospitals. The oper- 
ative work was skillful and rapidly done and 
so far as I could judge by the statistics given 
me, the results were very creditable. I saw 
several operations done, major operations, and 
it struck me that this sort of unit had a very 
real place in the scheme of modern care of the 
wounded. The wounded were the same patient 
lot that I found them everywhere I saw them. 
They got on the table with no reluctance ap- 
parently and those who waited their turn on 
147 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

the litters made no complaint and did not seem 
shocked at the atmosphere in which they waited. 
I suppose that after living a life where each day 
brings death in one dreadful form or another 
before one's eyes, the air of an operating room 
even with the distinctive attendant smell of 
fresh blood and all that goes to make up that 
complex whole, must seem in a measure restful. 
It is certainly the antithesis of the front line. 
There it is dirt and destruction and the only 
chance is from bad to worse ; here, it is cleanli- 
ness, reconstruction and the cunning work of 
busy fingers to put into place again all that has 
been torn asunder by the many engines of war. 
In spite of the fact that this Ambulance was 
devoted to the care of more serious cases than 

the one at D , the entire atmosphere was 

less depressing and I left it with less heaviness 
of heart than the one in the Parish house pre- 
sided over by the tired surgeon who craved 
additional comforts for his wounded. There 
were several Ambulances grouped at this point ; 
the Automobile Ambulance and others of the 
148 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

type of the one at D , making quite a little 

center, or colony of the wounded- They were 
all marked by the flag of the Geneva Conven- 
tion, both as flags proper, and by the Red 
Cross painted on the roofs of the buildings. 
They had been established there for some 
months and there was no possible doubt as to 
what they were, — and yet that did not prevent 
the ingenious Hun from very thoroughly bomb- 
ing them with characteristic German persist- 
ence not a great while after my visit there. The 
results were about what might have been ex- 
pected, and probably what the Boche did ex- 
pect. There were a number of the wounded and 
of the nurses killed and wounded again — and 
that was the extent of the Military advantage. 
I am not sorry to say that there were included 
among the casualties a number of German pris- 
oners who had been brought there to have their 
hurts tended and healed by the French. Under 
certain circumstances the bombing or bom- 
bardment of Sanitary units may be an unavoid- 
able incident of war. That is to say if they 
149 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

are so located that they may be readily con- 
fused with buildings given over to the use of 
the combatant forces. Incidents of that kind 
while of course deplorable are not subject for 
condemnation, but must be taken as a part of 
a business which at the best shows little mercy. 
So many hospitals and sanitary units have 
been attacked by the Germans, both at that time 
and subsequently, that one is driven to the in- 
evitable conclusion that it was a part of a well 
conceived plan of frightfulness and in no way 
attributable to the errors of judgment of those 
who executed the work. It is this sort of thing 
which has made Germany an Ishmael of the 
Nations. Tliis ruthless singleness of purpose; 
this intent to destroy anything which lives and 
is not German. I went abroad, not neutral, but 
with a fairly open mind in regard to the pos- 
sible exaggeration of some of the reports of 
German conduct. I found others over there who 
had been of the same opinion at first. I found 
none who had not changed to bitter condemna- 
tion and it was only a short time before I was 
150 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

forced to the same conclusion. Personally, I 
saw no atrocities ; I was not in a position to see 
them. I had however many friends among the 
French, people of incontestable veracity and of 
fairness of mind, and what they told me was 
sufficient, aside from published accounts of such 
acts as the bombing of Hospitals, to leave me 
with the same shuddering opinion of the Ger- 
man character as is held now by almost every 
one who knows their works. 

An important unit of the Zone of the Armies 
is the Evacuation Hospital. These are usually 
situated at Railhead and serve a double func- 
tion ; one as a clearing house, and the other as 
a Hospital for the care of cases whii^h come to 
it and are not fitted to be sent further. They 
are an outgrowth of the war and occupy a 
prominent place in the care of the sick and 
wounded. Unless specially constructed, they 
are located in buildings adapted for the purpose 
and oftentimes much ingenuity is shown in 
making use of the resources which were original- 
ly intended for a very different purpose. Those 
161 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

which are at Railhead or attached to Railroad 
stations are naturally, and fairly so, subject 
to bombardment. An evacuation hospital is 
provided for each Army Corps. Its bed capac- 
ity and personnel is not fixed as its capacity is 
planned for on the basis of the probable or 
possible demands that will be made on it. It is 
an organization belonging to the Zone of the 
Advance, although until very recently it was 
accredited to the Zone of the Line of Com- 
munication. The central idea about which the 
French Medical Service has been built is the 
necessity for keeping every sick and wounded 
man who can be returned to duty in a reason- 
able time in the Zone of the Armies. This I 
have previously referred to. The most im- 
portant single element in carrying out this idea 
is the Evacuation Hospital. In talking with 
French Medical officers the word "triage" 
(sorting) is constantly heard and one comes to 
realize how important a part this classification 
of wounded plays in the French scheme. While 
this sorting process is begun in the most ad- 
152 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

vanced Sanitary formations, it is at the Evacu- 
ation Hospital that its full importance is seen. 
That it is considered the vital factor in main- 
taining the strength of the combatant organiza- 
tions there can be no doubt. 

As I have said above, the personnel and equip- 
ment of these units is not specified. Formerly, 
they were, as the name implies, collecting points 
at Railhead for the evacuation of wounded and 
sick. Experience in war has caused radical 
changes in the organization of the unit. It 
now consists of two sections, one for evacuation 
and the other for hospitalization of patients. 
The two sections are under one officer who ad- 
ministers both. The personnel of the second 
section depends on the size of the hospital and 
the activity of the sector in which it is located. 
In periods of calm, twenty Medical Officers, two 
hundred enlisted men and about twenty women- 
nurses will suffice. When the front becomes 
active, forty or fifty Officers, three to four hun- 
dred enlisted men and a proportionate increase 
of women nurses will be required. 
153 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Briefly, the function of the Evacuation Hos- 
pital is: 

1. To avoid the exodus toward the interior 
of the large number of slightly wounded who 
can be returned to duty in a short time. 

2. To insure the rapid and comfortable 
evacuation to the interior of wounded and sick 
who will require long treatment and who would 
uselessly encumber the Zone of the Armies. 

3. To assure proper hospital care in the 
Zone of the Armies of wounded and sick who 
are non-transportable, or transportable for 
only a short distance. 

The location of an Evacuation Hospital must 
be on a railroad. It must be as close to the 
front as possible and connected by good roads 
with the Field Hospitals. It must comprise 
suitable covered entrance for the unloading of 
patients from the ambulances ; receiving rooms 
where classification of patients is made ; shelter 
in separate places for seated wounded, recum- 
bent wounded and the sick who are waiting 
evacuation ; hospital wards, operating rooms for 
154 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

the non-transportable cases and a small isola- 
tion section for contagious diseases waiting 
transportation to a contagious disease hospital. 

Formerly, existing buildings were adapted 
for the purpose as I stated previously, but as 
a matter of fact, at the present time these hos- 
pitals are now all constructed for the purpose 
they are to serve. It is absolutely essential that 
a railroad shall be in the immediate vicinity, or 
that a spur shall be run in, and that there be a 
loading quai on the level of the floor of the 
train. As to the capacity of the Hospital sec- 
tion of this unit, no definite rule can be laid 
down. It is inevitable that in periods of calm 
the hospital will not be working to capacity, and 
it is equally inevitable that in time of great 
activity its capacity and personnel will be over- 
taxed. On the average, they are designed to 
accommodate, in the Evacuation Section, 1,00(X 
sitting cases and 400 recumbent waiting trans- 
fer by hospital train; the Hospital section, 
from 400 to 600 patients. 

The work of these hospitals differs materially 
155 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

in time of calm and in time of great activity. 
In the first instance they care for all the serious 
cases arising on the front to which they belong. 
Many of them have well organized and equipped 
departments for the care of the special cases, 
such as plastic surgery of the face, eye, ear, 
nose and throat and similar special conditions. 
In periods of great activity their work is prac- 
tically confined to the care of the non-transport- 
able wounded, and the forwarding, through the 
evacuation section, of those who are to go far- 
ther back. 

From the above it can readily be seen what 
an important role in the Sanitary service these 
hospitals play, and their adaptability to con- 
ditions of relative inaction and of great stress. 

I visited a number of these interesting units 
located in difi^erent parts of France, from near 
the North Sea to the vicinity of the Swiss fron- 
tier. One that I saw in Northern France was 
located in a railroad station and installed in 
the buildings which were already there. They 
had made use of the freight shed since it was a 
156 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

large building and had the added advantage of 
having a quai, or platform, which was on a level 
with the car floors and thus made the loading of 
the trains a relatively easy matter. This big 
shed had been divided by temporary partitions 
into different rooms to meet the needs of the 
unit. There was no formal hospital in connec- 
tion with it, the cases needing urgent care be- 
ing transferred a short distance to one of the 
hospitals in the immediate vicinity. This was 
a wise precaution, for the station was very fre- 
quently bombed by airplanes and the risk of 
attending casualties among the helpless wound- 
ed counterbalanced any advantage which might 
have been gained by installing the hospital sec- 
tion. It served as a station for "triage" and 
the only wards were those in which the recum- 
bent wounded waited the departure of the daily 
train which was to transfer them farther to the 
rear. There were holes in the roof and no glass 
in the windows and the Surgeon in charge 
showed me one bed which had been riddled, both 
mattress and pillows, by fragments of a bonib 
157 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

which had fallen on the unit a night or two pre- 
viously. As one of the older type, this had no 
special construction and much ingenuity had 
been exercised in adapting the buildings of the 
station for their present use. 

At R , northeast of Verdun, I saw one 

of the later construction. This was at some 
little distance from the railroad station, but 
joined up to it by spur tracks which allowed 
the running in of trains for loading. The 
Surgeon in charge told me that they were not 
particularly busy at the time I visited it, but 
remarked in a nonchalant way that they did not 
consider that they had done a fair day's work 
unless they had forwarded through the evacua- 
tion section in the neighborhood of a thousand 
sick and wounded. The hospital section here 
was of about eight hundred bed capacity and 
the turn over from it depended on the condi- 
tion of the cases in it and also on the pressure 
of work. Pressure of work is a factor in regard 
to these hospitals for the reason that when there 
as a drive imminent, or in progress, every case 
158 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

that can be safely moved, is moved in order 
that there may be bed space for the tide of 
wounded which will flow in as the result of active 
hostihties. The movement of the wounded 
through an institution of this sort involves a 
deal of detail. As they arrive they must be 
unloaded from train or ambulance, they must 
be sorted in accordance with their necessities, 
check records must be made and certain data 
entered on the personal records which each man 
carries with him. They must be fed, each one 
must be carefully examined to determine the 
condition of his dressings and in many cases 
these must be renewed before he is shipped fur- 
ther down the line. Arrangements have to be 
made for the makeup of the train that is to 
carry them on and word sent to the different 
receiving points in order that when they arrive 
they shall find adequate preparation for their 
reception. I was struck by the methodical way 
in which all this ran: there seemed to be no 
hitch, no lost motion, and yet no one seemed 
to be in a hurry or even to have the appearance 
159 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

of being very busy. I apologized to my friend 
the Chief Surgeon for taking his time to pilot 
me about. He protested mildly, that he was not 
very busy, that I in nowise interfered with the 
routine and concluded by saying that things 
were so regulated that he was quite sure that 
all would go on perfectly well if he went to bed 
and remained there until the next morning. 
There were a number of German prisoners there 
waiting to be sent on into the interior. The 
majority of those I saw at this hospital at this 
time were undersized boys, not very well nour- 
ished and apparently very glad to be in a safe 
place and through with war's alarms. They 
were by no means representative of Germany's 
man power however, for many months later I 
saw many others who were as husky, able bodied 
brutes as one would wish to encounter — or not 
to encounter save under similar circumstances, 
for the only Germans that ever looked good to 
me were either prisoners or dead. 

As I was walking down a path between two of 
the wards the Surgeon stopped a minute to talk 
160 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

to an orderly and I went on alone, passing a 
group of French Sanitary Soldiers. They salut- 
ed as I passed, looking with curiosity at my uni- 
form and after I had gotten by, I heard in un- 
mistakable United States, "Well, I'll be damned ! 
What in hell do you know about that ! I haven't 
seen one in over two years and he certainly looks 
good to me." I wheeled and went back to the 
group and asked, in English, if the man who 
had been talking would mind coming and hav- 
ing a few words with me. Out stepped a short, 
gray haired man of about fifty, the least Amer- 
ican looking one of the lot and with a good 
French salute and an embarrassed air said, "It 
was me. Major, but I meant no disrespect, and 
I was that astonished that maybe I spoke louder 
than I intended. You see I haven't seen an 
American Officer now since the war started and 
I just covildn't help it." I assured him that I 
had come back solely to have a few minutes' 
chat with him and not to take exception to his 
diction, and to prove it, wound up with, "And 
where in hell did you come from.^"' He explained 
161 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

tKat he had spent almost all his life in New 
York although he had been bom in France; 
that he was a naturalized American but that he 
could not stand the strain when war was de- 
clared, so he had come over and enlisted with 
the French. His one grievance seemed to be 
that in view of his fifty years they would not 
put him in as a combatant and so he had been 
obliged to content himself with the duties of a 
Brancardier, or litter bearer. 

This he had been doing since the beginning 
of the war, and knowing as I did, the kind of 
work that not infrequently falls to the lot of the 
litter bearers in their search for wounded, I 
was not sure that his lot had always been' in the 
easy places he considered it had fallen. He was 
sturdy, and strong, a French type, and blended 
well with the group which surrounded him. He 
presented some of his brother non-commissioned 
officers, for he was a Sergeant, and we had a 
cheerful chat and when my French was too tech- 
nical for the others he set them straight and 
when they wandered too far into the slang of the 
162 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

trenches he translated that into equivalent 
American slang for me and we laughed and 
joked while my friend the Surgeon stood a little 
apart with an amused smile on his face and 
waited until I should have concluded the ameni- 
ties with this wandering countryman of mine 
who was the link between us both with his love 
of one country and his allegiance to the other. 
He was a good Sergeant, he said, faithful and 
hard working and deserving of much credit. I 
saw other Evacuation Hospitals in different 
sectors of the line ; some of the improvised type 
and some constructed for the purpose as this 
one was. They all ran, however, on the same 
general plan and the functioning was smooth, 
regular and almost automatic. In the elabora- 
tion of this step in the care of the wounded the 
French have standardized, so to speak, the ad- 
ministrative method so that there seems to be 
little trouble with the functioning. 

The units already referred to constitute those 
which are of the most importance in the Zone 
of the Armies, but it must not be inferred that 
163 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

the others which exist have no place in the Sani- 
tary scheme. As they have been referred to in 
the Chapter on the General Sanitary system of 
the French, I make no further reference to them 
here. 

I had one personal experience with Military 
Hospitals which left me with a very pleasant 
impression and a distinct sense of gratitude. In 
May 1917 it was necessary for me to make a 
visit to the British lines in connection with some 
official duty. We left Paris in the early morn- 
ing, by automobile, and although I was not feel- 
ing well when I started I figured that a run in 
the open car would put me on my feet. Soon 
after starting I developed a persistent and 
distressing cough which clung to me for the 150 
miles that we covered before noon at the usual 
rapid French rate. I sat through a long lunch- 
eon with a British General and his mess and 
found it the longest meal I had ever encountered. 
Immediately afterward I begged off from the 
afternoon program of work and asked if I might 
go to my billet and lie down until the next mom- 
1(54 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

ing as I was a bit seedy. A nice English Medi- 
cal Officer took me there in his car, returned 
with another one and within the hour I was 
packed off willy-nilly and resting in the Officers' 
ward of the hospital in the town, with a very 
frank case of pneumonia which had been in 
process of development when I left Paris and 
which my long ride in the open motor had not 
benefited to any great extent. 

I was an entire stranger to all the Officers 
there, but no one could have received more de- 
voted, thoughtful care than was lavished on the 
American Cousin by his British kin. When the 
bad days were over and I was able to be up in a 
steamer chair, my room was full every afternoon 
of nice British officers. They brought me things 
to read and things to eat and things to smoke 
and things to drink and sat all over the shop and 
laughed and talked and gave me very clearly to 
understand that I was not a stranger in a 
strange land, but at home and with my own 
people. I cannot conceive of any finer, tactful 
care than that shown to me, a sick stranger 
165 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

In the little hospital at M . There was one 

good looking youngster who came often to see 
me. He belonged to the Ancient Artillery and 
wore the absurd baggy knickerbocker riding 
breeches which are a mark of that organization. 
One afternoon, I got up from my chair and 
floated uncertainly over to my clothes in the 
closet and extracting one of my cards from a 
pocket, tendered it to him by way of forma] 
introduction. He took it with a quizzical grin 
and without looking at it, said, "That's very 
nice of you and I am glad to have the card, 
but listen a minute and see if I really need it." 
Then he started and gave correctly, my full 
name, age, place of birth, year of entry into 
the American Army, date of departure from 
the United States, date of arrival in France 
and wound up with, "You are at present living 
with your wife and two children at the Hotel 
Regina in Paris and if you will give me a mes- 
sage to Mrs. Church, I will guarantee that it 
will be in her hands within twenty minutes." 
I asked him respectfully whether he was just a 
166 



THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES 

plain seventh son, or whether it was a family 
failing. He solved the puzzle by telling me 
that he was the Intelligence Officer and that it 
was his business to know all about any one 
who came into that part of the British lines, 
which absolved him from the suspicion of any 
uncanny powers. I did give him the message 
and he telephoned it to Paris on his special wire 
and it did get to its destination within the 
promised twenty minutes. 

I neglected to say that the last thing I 
heard on the day of my admission to that hos- 
pital, just as I dropped off into a feverish, 
cough racked sleep, was the roar of the "Arch- 
ies," the anti-aircraft guns, as they vigorously 
shelled a Hun machine which was over the town. 



CHAPTER V 



TRANSPORTATION 



The old saw runs, "First catch your hare." 
In order that the wounded in war may have the 
advantage of the necessary treatment, it is re- 
quisite that they be collected and transferred to 
the different stations established for this pur- 
pose. All transportation comes under three 
general heads : first, that of hand carriage, sec- 
ond, by vehicle, either horse or motor driven, 
third, carriage by train or boat. All are 
important and occupy a definite place in the 
sanitary scheme and each one presents its own 
special problem. The collection by hand is 
that which is first in the order and involves the 
moving of the wounded from the place where 
they have fallen to the next station. It is hard 
and trying work, made more so by the fact that 
much of it has to be carried out through the 
168 




Transport of Wounded by Litter through a Trench. 




Wheel Litter Transport. 



TRANSPORTATION 

trenches where walking is difficult even when 
not encumbered by a burden. Due to the range 
of modem Artillery fire the approach trenches 
may mean a matter of one or two miles through 
which litters must be carried, although this is 
obviated at times by evacuation over the normal 
ground level at night when darkness gives rela- 
tive protection to the working parties. 

This class of work is done in the Regiment, 
by the Regimental Litter Bearers, who form an 
integral part of each Regiment, and they are 
supplemented by the personnel of the band if the 
Regiment has one. These bearers are supposed 
to clean up for their own Regiment and see 
that the wounded are carried back to the first 
aid station. If further hand transportation is 
necessary from this point it is furnished by the 
Division Litter Bearers, who are held in re- 
serve by the Division Surgeon and sent in where 
their services are most required. In many cases 
the wounded are evacuated direct from the first 
aid posts by ambulances which are now, in the 
vast majority of cases, motor driven. In addi- 
171 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

tion to the Division group of bearers, there is 
another supplementary group which belongs to 
the Army Corps and is under the orders of the 
Corps Surgeon and used in the same manner 
as that of the Division. 

The work of these carriers of the 
wounded is hazardous as well as being hard 
physical work. The French say that 
"all shells are blind" and many men of the San- 
itary Corps have lost their lives while trying to 
save those of their fallen comrades. It has al- 
ways seemed to me that much credit should be 
given to these patient searchers for the wound- 
ed. They have none of the spirit of the chase, 
the excitement of conflict, the stimulation of 
battle. It is their lot to plod along in the shell 
shattered area and clean up the muss that their 
combatant brothers have made. The wastage 
has been high among them although I have 
never seen any published statistics in regard to 
it. Many expedients have been tried to expedite 
this hand labor. In the trenches themselves, 
much thought has been given to devising a litter 
172 



TRANSPORTATION 

which will adapt itself to the narrow and tor- 
tuous length of the steep walled ditches which 
make up these systems. Some of them have 
been fairly successful, but in the main, the 
French have depended on the regulation Franck 
litter or on rude improvisations constructed of 
poles and canvas. One form, however, is in ex- 
tended use although it has no place in the 
trench proper. This is the wheel litter, and by 
its aid one or two men can transport a loaded 
litter with the minimum exertion since the load 
is transferred from them to the supporting 
wheels. They will go almost anywhere that a 
wheelbarrow can be pushed and are extremely 
practical. I think that the most satisfactory 
one that I saw in operation was conducted by 
two surly looking Boche prisoners presided over 
by a French guard. At the beginning of the 
war the French were almost entirely dependent 
for wheel transportation on horse drawn ve- 
hicles. There were plans for motor ambulance 
sections, but only a few of them were in actual 
operation and the most of the transfer was done 
173 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

■either by the little two wheeled ambulances or 
their big brothers with four. It was a very 
short time before the superiority of the gas 
engine over man's patient friend and ally, the 
horse, became evident, and practically every- 
thing was turned over to the gas driven car. 

An orderly system was rapidly evolved in the 
operation of these and at the present time the 
make up of the Sections is not radically differ- 
ent from what it was in the first days of their 
use. There were mechanical questions to be set- 
tled of course, in regard to construction, type 
of engine, weight of car and capacity of the car 
for wounded. Some of these problems took 
much trial for their adjustment and others set- 
tled themselves very promptly by the aid of 
practical experience. 

As an example of the latter, there 
is the method of putting the litters in 
the ambulance. Each car has a capacity 
of a certain number of litters, each carrying its 
wounded man ; some three, some four and others 
£ve. This necessitates that some of the litters 
174 



TRANSPORTATION 

shall be suspended above the floor of the car. 
Some one seeking to devise a method by which 
the wounded should travel with as little shock 
as possible, devised the scheme of suspending 
these upper htters by straps which were at- 
tached to the uprights by coiled springs. It 
was thought that in this way the jar of the road 
would be taken up and much added to the com- 
fort of the patient. It was very quickly dis- 
covered by those who drove the motors that the 
reverse was the truth. The suspended patients, 
in addition to having the inequalities of the road 
accentuated by this system of suspension, were 
subjected to a back and forth swing, — thrust, 
which was practicably unbearable. You can 
readily understand it if you will imagine your- 
self with a shattered thigh on a litter which is 
swaying back and forth from head to foot with 
each move of the motor and grinding together 
the two ends of the splintered bone. The man 
who was placed on the floor of the car was the 
fortunate soul and the drivers brought com- 
parative peace and comfort to the inhabitants 
175 



THE DOCTOR'S PAKT 

of the upper tier by boring holes in the wooden 
sides of the car and lashing the oscillating 
stretchers fast and immovable. It was only a 
short time before the spring suspension, or any 
suspension, was looked on as obsolete and the 
cars built with channeled runways into which 
the shoes of the stretcher fitted. This method 
has persisted and has not only made things eas- 
ier for the sorely tried passengers, but has 
facilitated the question of loading. 

There were long and sometimes bitter argu- 
ments between the advocates of the light and the 
heavy type of car and each side claimed for its 
preferred type many advantages which probably 
did not exist and overlooked others which did. It 
was finally demonstrated that there was a place 
for both kinds, and thereafter "the tumult and 
the shouting died." To speak of a product so 
well known as the Ford motor can scarcely be 
considered as advertising. Many of this make 
of automobile were taken to France and there 
was much discussion as to the merits of them for 
the work to which they were put. As with the 
176 



TRANSPORTATION 

general argument for the heavy and light cars 
they had their partisans and those who opposed 
them. The early ones in use did have several 
faults which were overcome by later modifica- 
tions. The long overhang of the body put an un- 
due strain on the supporting sills which were 
prone to break and this added weight was also 
too great a tax on the 8 leaf rear spring. When 
the sills were made stronger and another leaf 
added to the spring this objection was over- 
come. Their lightness was an advantage inas- 
much as when one ran off the road it was a 
simple matter to put it back by the aid of four 
or five men, and there are a,lways four or five 
men on any of the roads in the Zone of the 
Armies in the France of wartime. Due also 
to their light weight they will go, and can be 
driven where heavier cars would "bog down." 
I found the French in the Vosges mountains 
very much in their favor for use in that pre- 
cipitous country. On the other hand I heard 
that they did not wear as well as some of the 
more expensive cars and were an undue expense 
177 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

for upkeep. I hold no brief, either for or 
against them, and I have mentioned these "facts 
merely because they are really a national insti- 
tution and I have been many times asked as to 
their utility in this class of war. 

The French have adopted for their heavier 
type of car, a body which holds five recumbent 
cases, four of them on the channeled runners 
already referred to and the fifth on the floor of 
the car underneath them. This was an evolution 
of the four case body and it can be readily seen 
when we multiply one car by the twenty, which 
make up a section, and those twenty by the num- 
ber of trips made that the addition of even one 
case to the carrying capacity of a car is a very 
appreciable advantage in the question of evacu- 
ation. The personnel of these Sections is about 
forty men and presided over by two commis- 
sioned officers. They are self-contained units, 
and carry their own cook and tentage to shel- 
ter them at the sector at which they are at 
work. They are, as is all Motor transport in 
the French Army, under the direction of the 
178 



TRANSPORTATION 

Automobile Service. This does not mean that 
they have their duties prescribed for them by 
this service, but that so far as mechanical di- 
rection goes they are responsible to it. Their 
spare parts come from it and the replacement 
cars to take the place of those shot up or worn 
out. So far as their actual running duty goes, 
they are under the orders of the Chief Surgeon 
of the Sector in which they work. He lays out 
their schedule and the Officers in command of 
the Sections are held responsible that the sec- 
tion does its work in accordance with the di- 
rections it receives. They are a roving or- 
ganization, here to-day and gone to-morrow, 
and they foregather where there is the shock 
of battle and the blood flows fastest. Natural- 
ly there is but little work for them in a peaceful 
sector and they are drafted to those in which 
there is real activity. They have proved de- 
voted in their duties and have gained much 
commendation from their brothers in the line 
who are dependent on them for transport when 
German ammunition has laid them low. 
179 



THE DOCTOR'S PAKT 

Prior to our entry in the war a very appre- 
ciable proportion of this collecting work was 
done by American volunteers who worked under 
two different organizations, the American Am- 
bulance Service (later the American Field 
Service) and another series of sections organ- 
ized under the direction of the Red Cross. This 
service was built up from small beginnings and 
in the course of time came to be an important 
adjunct to the French sections engaged in the 
work. At first there was some difficulty due 
to the fact that it was, as is universally the 
case, difficult to adjust questions of discipline 
in a volunteer organization. When this condi- 
tion was recognized it was met by measures 
which did away with the objectionable feature 
and thereafter the functioning of the service was 
smooth and satisfactory. The French system 
was adopted and the make up of the volunteer 
sections was identical with those of the regular 
French army. A French officer was put in com- 
mand of each section and the American volun- 
teers worked under his command. The per- 
180 



TRANSPORTATION 

sonnel was under a pledge to serve with the 
section for a minimum of six months and many 
of them renewed the obligation. 

The result of this voluntary aid was an ad- 
vantage to the French in the material help af- 
forded and to our own country in the experience 
and training it gave to the men who after our 
entry in the war were qualified to do the work 
themselves for their own people. The French 
were entirely appreciative of the efforts of these 
two services and at a time when there was much 
speculation as to what was to be the attitude of 
America in the war the presence of these men in 
this active capacity did much to retain the con- 
fidence of our Allies as to our ultimate inten- 
tions. I heard many comments by my French 
friends in respect to the good work accom- 
plished by these American Sections and they 
were always accompanied by warm appreciation 
and entire affection. At the beginning of our 
part in the war these services were absorbed by 
our army and many of the personnel remained to 
carry out as enlisted men and officers under our 
181 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

own flag the duties they had learned as volun- 
teers with a foreign force. The duties which 
fall to the Ambulance driver are by no means a 
sinecure. They call for resourcefulness, for 
self reliance, stamina and a disregard for per- 
sonal safety. To drive ^ smoothly running 
motor on a good xoad with clear daylight or 
adequate illumination by lamps is a very dif- 
ferent proposition from nursing a heavy car at 
a low rate of speed over a road pitted with 
shell holes and subjected to intense bombard- 
ment. 

No one who has not had the doubtful pleas* 
ure of riding in an ambulance under such con- 
ditions can appreciate what it means. There is 
no darkness so black as that of these cloud 
draped French skies where light comes only 
from star rockets. One cannot see ; he must go 
I think by intuition. There are a thousand 
things to confuse and puzzle : the general lay of 
the road must be in the driver's mind, with all 
shell holes and obstructions registered in his 
mental processes and even so he has no assur- 
182 



TRANSPORTATION 

ance that since he has last traversed the way 
of his coming some fresh shell burst has not 
opened up a new pitfall to catch him and his 
wounded cargo. He must dodge the traffic of 
the "ravitaillement" convoys, the camions which 
each night bring up to the front lines over 
these blasted thoroughfares the supplies for the 
front that can come up only under the shield- 
ing protection of the darkness. He must expect 
damage to his car and to himself by shell burst 
and carry on as long as he can even if wounded, 
or put his car again in condition to travel if 
within range of human possibility. And he 
must make his repairs in the dark, by the sense 
of touch and with the certain knowledge that 
other shell may come before his task is finished 
and blow him and his machine and his wounded 
man in a gory tangle of torn flesh and broken 
wood and twisted iron far past any chance of 
recognition. 

He must expect to drive through gas 
when his sight is not only obscured by the 
cloud but by the mask he wears for protection. 
183 



,THE DOCTOR'S PART 

He must forget that there are hours when the 
human system cries out for rest and repose, and 
so long as there are wounded waiting for trans- 
port from the front to their place in the rear 
of the line he must keep his heavy eyes open 
and with clear brain and a high heart shut his 
teeth tight on the sense of hunger and fatigue 
and cold and danger and drive, drive, drive ; 
until the front is clear so far as his sector is 
concerned, and then, perhaps if the fates are 
not kind to him, hustle off to an adjoining sec- 
tor to lend willing if tired hands to those who 
need them there. Twenty-four hours, thirty-six 
hours at a stretch is no novelty in his day's 
work and he does it with the cheerful sang froid 
of the clean bred American who knows how to 
spend and spare not when he considers that 
it is "up to him." This is the class of work that 
was so well done by these two volunteer organ- 
izations and it is little wonder to me that the 
French were fond of these boy drivers of theirs 
who held their chins high and with a cheerful 
grin and an impudent cigarette in the comer of 
184 




Ambulance Drawn by Dogs. 






Sanitaky Dog — "Red Cross Dog" — ^Dressing his 
Wounds. 



TRANSPORTATION 

their mouths drove through Hell with entire 
apparent unconcern. They did not all drive 
through though, for sometimes the red flare of 
the burst carried the steel fragments home and 
stilled the brave hearts beneath the rough 
clothes. 

Cross guarded mounds, from the Vosges up 
through Verdun and on beyond the plains of 
Picardy, mark where these young seekers of the 
Great Adventure have found that which they 
had so often regarded unafraid with their frank 
boyish eyes. During the latter part of my ser- 
vice in France I was sorry to see in one of the 
papers of Paris which is printed in English a 
rather bitter and I thought unwarranted criti- 
cism of the many young men who made up the 
personnel of these two services. I had the op- 
portunity to know many of them and I am glad 
to bear testimony that those I saw were straight 
and clean and unafraid. They were a credit to 
our Great Republic and the memory they left 
after them is one that will remain green in the 
hearts of our allies and is one which we should 
187 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

cherish, the record of fine service done un-asked, 
of labor and strength and life given because 
they believed the cause was their cause and in 
this way only could they at that time bear testi- 
mony. 

At the time we took our place in the ranks 
of those opposed to the Hun menace this service 
was taken over and administered by our own 
army and it was my good fortune to make, un- 
der General Pershing's order, an inspection of 
the American Field Service that I might report 
to him their availability for incorporation into 
our own forces. In company with the Director 
of the service I not only went over the complete 
installation in Paris, where the central offices, 
the receiving barracks and the various repair 
and construction shops were located, but in 
company with him I spent some days at various 
points of the front that I might be in a posi- 
tion to report not only on the general organiza- 
tion and the material resources, but as to the 
actual working conditions of the sections under 
field conditions. This tour carried us from the 
188 



TRANSPORTATION 

always interesting Verdun sector on the South 
up the line to that man made hell the Chemin- 
des-Dames, We left Paris in the early day of 
a summer morning in a large and perfectly 
capable Peerless car driven by a taciturn young 
man who was as capable as the car and exacted 
from it relentlessly as much kinetic energy as 
was potentially stored under the long black 
engine hood. 

We went out over the smooth straight line 
of the Route National to Montmirail where 
stands one of the many monuments of France, 
this one now scarred but not broken by the 
German shells which struck it during the hard 
days of 1914. We ate a cold lunch in the car, 
and literally I do not remember that I ever had 
a meal go so far, as we were reeling off steady 
mile after mile at fifty, fifty-two and fifty-eight 
to the hour. Travel by motor is not regarded 
as a pleasure in France to-day ; it is an errand, 
a method of annihilating the space that exists 
between "here" and "there", and your chauffeur 
gives his entire and silent attention to seeing 
189 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

that there are no wasted seconds in transit. I 
have a private suspicion that he sometimes 
makes it a sporting proposition with himself. 
There was a big French staff car in front of 
us which I soon realized must be passed, though 
why I do not to this day know. With my mouth 
full of cold chicken and hard boiled egg I 
watched the speedometer, which read in miles, 
creep from fifty to fifty-five, jump to sixty and 
then while the needle danced drunkenly above 
sixty-eight there was the throb and roar of 
passing engines and we sailed triumphantly 
away ahead. 

The speed laws of France to-day are 
very explicit and entirely exact: they are 
based altogether on the power of your engine 
and your own confidence in your maker, — of 
your car. We visited a school of mechanics 
and construction where the personnel of the 
service was sent for a course in both the theory 
and practice of driving and repairing cars and 
in the technique of handling and managing con- 
voys. There were lectures by officers of the 
190 



TRANSPORTATION 

French Automobile Service with blackboard dia- 
grams and formulas which looked decidedly 
technical, and there was a well equipped work 
shop where these student volunteers were taught 
to take to pieces and assemble various makes of 
engines and to make such repairs as would fall 
to the lot of the ordinary, or better said, ex- 
traordinary, chauffeur under the many adverse 
conditions which were thereafter to be his nor- 
mal daily surroundings. It seemed thorough 
and practical and the Director told me that it 
was a manifest advantage and that in this way 
they were able to turn out men who in addition 
to being good drivers had also sufficient tech- 
nical knowledge to render them of value for 
positions which necessitated more than an un- 
derstanding of the requirements of the throttle 
and the brake. The lectures were all in French, 
and I am sure that the abiSorption of this tech- 
nical lore in a strange language was not alto- 
gether a light and easy task. It was good prac- 
tice however since their duties would lie with 
those who spoke no other language and with the 
191 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

easy facility of youth they seemed to be entirely 
undisturbed by the fact that they must think in 
a foreign tongue. 

From the school we went on through Chalons- 
sur-Marne and St. Menhould and Clermont-en- 
Argonne and up to a Section which was operat- 
ing behind the Avocourt sector in the Bois de 
Hesse. This is all N.E. of Verdun and there 
has been much hard fighting in the country and 
the life of a Section on duty in this vicinity is 
sure to be a busy one at some time of its stay. 
The day we were there was one of comparative 
quiet. Comparative quiet on the western front 
should not bring to the mind of any one an 
idyllic, lazy, drowsy summer day. The word 
"comparative" was I think invented for battle 
use and it is easy for one to say in regard to 
existent conditions, it is "comparatively quiet 
to-day." I have seen times when I thought 
that indeed comparisons were odious. As there 
is always motion in the sea even in time of ab- 
solute calm, so on this tossed and troubled field 
of war, comparative quiet does not mean a cessa- 
192 



TRANSPORTATION 

tion of gunfire, an absence of war's furors. It 
is, I think, in line with the leading western citi- 
zen's eulogy over the body of the dead bad man 
of whom the best he could say was, "Brethren, 
he might have been a damn sight worse." 

We inspected the quarters of the drivers 
which were the usual French billet, barns and 
sheds commandeered for the purpose but cleaned 
and in order with commendable American neat- 
ness. We looked over the row of waiting Ambu- 
lances and lifted hood after hood to see if we 
could find a dirty engine, which we did not, and 
we had our attention called by the fresh faced 
drivers to the jagged holes in the wood work 
or the white scars on the iron where Boche shells 
had left their biting mark during such and such 
a run. They were proud of those scars of 
service and I do not blame them. We went with 
the American Section Chief, for there is an 
American Assistant Chief as well as the French 
officer who is in supreme charge, up to the first 
aid post which drained the front trenches of this 
sector. There we found an Ambulance pra- 
193 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

tected from shell fire behind some debris and a 
segment of still standing wall and down in a 
dugout two blase youths who were playing list- 
less casino and complaining that it was unutter- 
ably stupid that day with no excitement and 
nothing to do. From here we went on ahead 
through the green of the Forest to one of the 
French observation posts presided over by a 
smart little French Corporal and one or two 
men. From this there was a good view of the 
German lines not far distant and with the aid 
of a pair of good glasses it was possible to make 
out very plainlj'^ the trend of the enemy trenches 
and the tangled mass of his barbed wire which 
loomed on the other side of that bare waste 
of "No Man's Land." 

The next day we spent in looking over var- 
ious sections in the vicinity of Verdun and in 
the evening were off again to the Northeast of 
Verdun where we dined at the mess of one of 
the sections which was on duty in the Sector 
comprising the Mort Homme and Hill S04, 
points which at that time were fiercely disputed 
194 



TRANSPORTATION 

bj both the French and Germans. This was 
just prior to the drive in July 1917 in which 
the French retook both these points and ex- 
tended their lines to the point they had occu- 
pied at the time of the initial thrust of the 
troops of the Crown Prince in his hapless quest 
for the pass at Verdun. I had been in hopes 
of making this visit at the time of the Infantry 
assault, but got there too early and had to con- 
tent myself with the Artillery preparation. As 
a spectacle this is all that could be desired and 
as for overwhelming insistent noise it goes far 
beyond anything that the imagination can con- 
ceive. The headquarters of this section were 
at that time at Villes-sur-Cousines (since this 
ground has passed well into French control 
there seems to be no reason for avoiding names) 
and here were the cars of the unit, save those 
which were on duty at the different advance 
posts, and here were the repair shop and the 
quarters and mess of the men who made up the 
section. 

After a cheerful supply with the personnel 
195 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

I set out with the French Lieutenant in 
command to inspect the forward work of the 
Section. The evacuation of the wounded, save 
in time of intense activity, was carried on in 
the dusk and in the night, since much of the road 
traversed in doing this lay within plain view of 
the German lines about the Mort Homme and 
Hill 304 and they were not backward about 
shelling any moving transport on the roads. 
We went in a Ford car up through Dombasle, 
from which the section had been recently shelled 
out, over roads which grew progressively worse, 
until we came to the town of Montzeville. The 
roar of the guns grew louder as we advanced 
and before we reached Montzeville we came into 
the area in which French batteries were posted, 
and in action. So well and carefully is artil- 
lery now concealed that it was a difficult matter 
to make out the location of the batteries save 
from the flash of the guns themselves. It is 
distinctly disconcerting to have a battery of 
which you have no previous knowledge, fire a 
salvo from your immediate vicinity; to hear 
196 



TRANSPORTATION 

the shells tear their way over your head and 
to feel the shock of the concussion. It shakes 
you mentally and physically and the first of 
these literally raised me off my seat to the 
amusement of the French Lieutenant. The 
Germans were searching for these batteries with 
good sized shells and the black clouds of their 
bursts dotted the hills all about and the sharp 
roar of their explosions added to the noise of 
the French artillery. One dropped on a bat- 
tery near the road as we came along and killed 
one of the gun crew. They brought him in to 
the aid station, his face covered with a cloth 
through which the red stains showed. 

His body was placed in an angle of the wall 
on the stretcher and excited no comment and 
apparently no curiosity. One chatted or 
laughed or smoked a foot away and it all seemed 
a matter of course; that which had happened 
to him to-day might happen to any one to- 
morrow and was only a part of the day's work. 
Of course that is the only rational way to view 
it, for war is a gamble for the individual at 
197 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

test, but it seemed very close and personal to 
see this healthy sweating peasant turned in a 
minute from a living entity to a mangled shape 
whose only further end was burial in one of the 
cross crowned little cemeteries which mark so 
much of France to-day. 

Montzeville itself was a husk of a town. Of 
course no one lived there save the troops who 
were on duty in the immediate vicinity.. The 
houses were roofless shells, pitted and scarred 
by the German gunfire and the once tidy street 
was pock marked with shell holes and littered 
with debris. We left the Ford car here and, 
after visiting the little dugout which pro- 
vided shelter for the small number of Sani- 
tary personnel on duty and the woimded 
from the nearby batteries, I changed to an 
Ambulance which was to go forward to Esnes, 
to wait there during the night on emergency 
duty ; to bring back any cases which might not 
be able to wait long for treatment. This am- 
bulance bore the mark of shell explosion and the 
Boy driver who was in charge of it told me 
198 



TRANSPORTATION 

that it was quite customary to be shelled on 
the way to Esnes, and especially at one point 
where the road made a sharp turn and ran for a 
way parallel to and in plain sight of both the 
Mort Homme and Hill 304. He told me that 
they usually ran with two men on the front seat 
so that if the driver were hit the other could 
take the wheel if he himself escaped. As I 
was not myself a competent chauffeur I won- 
dered what would be the fate of that particular 
car if anything happened to him at the turn 
that night. 

We picked our way slowly in the fad- 
ing light over a road that was bad because 
it was pitted with shell holes, littered with vari- 
ous obstructions and covered with a coating of 
greasy mud. All around us, before, behind and 
on either side the French batteries of large and 
small caliber were in action and the air was 
full of the scream of the departing shell and 
also punctuated by the drone of the German 
projectiles which were searching for them in 
counter battery work. It was slow going and, 
199 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

if progress was no more rapid under these con- 
ditions when it was possible to see the way, I 
wondered what it was when you had to feel out 
your route in inky blackness, threading a pre- 
carious way through the maze of transport 
which each evening crowds the road. Every- 
thing along here bore testimony to the fact 
that it was the scene of conflict. There was 
the active evidence of the French batteries in 
action and the burst of the German shells in 
reply. 

Everywhere were the craters of former 
explosions and new ones forming at various 
points. What few trees remained were riven 
and splintered, hanging their withered heads in 
token of the blast which had swept over all this 
once fair landscape. There is an incongruity 
about a battleground in a cultivated country. 
It seems all wrong somehow; not to belong; as 
though some black hideous excrescence had ap- 
peared on a flowering plant. There yet remain 
enough of the landmarks of happy peace to 
show what had existed before the scorching 
200 



TRANSPORTATION 

breath of war and passion had swept over every- 
thing turning the green to brown and breaking 
and twisting into fantastic shapes all the home- 
ly marks of normal existence. We crept on in 
the glow of the sunset up the battered road 
going straight toward the Mort Homme which 
showed as a dominant height wreathed and 
dotted with the white bursts of the French 
shells which sprang up one after another over 
its face as the shells landed and exploded. We 
were not shelled at the turn this night, but as 
we turned and began our run parallel to the 
Hill 304 on the road which ran into Esnes, 
(pronounced, "N") German shrapnel began to 
break before, behind and on either side of the 
road. I do not think they were looking par- 
ticularly for the ambulance, it was just a part 
of a methodical search for the batteries which 
were in action against their positions. None 
of the shells burst very close to us, the nearest 
about two hundred and fifty feet away I sup- 
pose, but it was enough to give one an idea of 
sudden death or mangled after existence. 
201 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

We jolted into Esnes over a road which grew 
progressively worse and was littered with brick 
and fallen masonry and tiles which had been dis- 
lodged from the houses of the little village. 
Esnes was Montzeville over again, only accen- 
tuated. No one was here either save the sol- 
dier garrison and it seemed a ghost of a place 
in the fading light of the summer twilight. The 
house fronts without their roofs shone gray 
and ghastly in the twilight and the shell holes 
in them were black and ragged. Shells were 
bursting in many parts of the town and their 
explosion was followed by the downrush of 
masonry and the tinkle of falling tiles. We 
went on up a street past the body of a dead 
horse whose stiff legs pointed grotesquely up 
to heaven, the one remaining evidence, save some 
dark stains on the ground, of where eight men 
of the transport train had been caught in a 
shell explosion the night before and their lives 
blown quickly out. Even as we came up a 
fatigue party came out with picks and shovels, 
and under the constant urging of a non-com- 
202 



TRANSPORTATION 

missioned officer hurriedly put this last dis- 
torted evidence under ground. Everything is 
done hurriedly that can be so accomplished, in 
this region where death drops unexpected from 
the skies and no man is safe save he be protected 
by solid earth and rock above his head. 

The first aid post was in the cellar of an old 
chateau. The usual type, the brick and stone 
arches reinforced by stout timber uprights to 
make assurance as doubly sure as might be. The 
entrance was down a flight of stone stairs and 
the interior dark and low and crowded with 
bunks, wounded and the personnel who cared 
for them. Coming in from the light one had to 
go slowly in this dusky cave to avoid stepping 
on some silent figure which waited with charac- 
teristic stoic patience his turn to be transferred 
to some place where he should receive care for 
his wound, clean bed and quiet surroundings. 
It was all rather like one of Dante's word pic- 
tures. The gloomy darkness punctuated by 
the flare of the torch like lamps and the candles, 
the smell of blood and drugs, the thick shadows 
20S 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

which lurked in the corners and threw into re- 
lief the staring white of the fresh bandages and 
the pale gray of the upturned faces. It seemed 
very fitting somehow that the setting of the 
picture should be underground, for it was cer- 
tainly associated with death and all that goes 
with it. 

I made the rounds of the little estab- 
lishment with the Surgeon on duty there and 
he explained his cases to me and the means he 
had of caring for those who came to him for 
this the first step on their road to cure. There 
is not much, of course, which can be done in 
a unit of this kind: only the simpler kinds of 
work. One stops hemorrhage of course, if it 
exists, injections of Anti- tetanic serum are ad- 
ministered, splints are adjusted and the men 
given broth and stimulants if required. The 
first aid post is just a check point to insure that 
the wounded who go from it shall leave in the 
best shape possible to make the trip to the 
unit further back. It makes no pretence at 
anything in the way of formal work. All that 
204 



TRANSPORTATION 

is done, however, is entered on the tag which 
is twisted on a wire on a button of the wounded 
man's coat and he arrives at each station with 
a readily accessible record of what his injury 
is, and of the measures which have already been 
taken for his relief. The urgent cases, those 
which should receive prompt surgical care, are 
so marked by a special tag. The whole system 
is along the line of that key word, "triage" — ' 
sorting, which as I have stated is very nearly 
the base on which this system of care of the 
wounded is built. 

There were not many seriously wounded in 
this dark little cellar this evening and I was 
spared the always harrowing sight of the 
mangled men who uncomplainingly bear in- 
juries which seem beyond the control of human 
fortitude. At certain posts, such as this, 
where there is apt to be need for transport at 
almost any time, a motor ambulance is kept 
always on duty throughout the twenty-four 
hours. It was to replace the one then there 
that we had come up, and the boy who was my 
207 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

driver from Montzeville was due to wait 
through the long fire swept night until he in 
turn was relieved, or obliged to feel his way out 
in the Stygian blackness with his wounded. As 
I have said, all these highways of the front are 
each night subjected to searching shell fire in 
order to harass as much as possible the service 
which brings up to the front lines the stores of 
food and ammunition and other necessities 
which may not be safely transported by the 
light of day. And so, soon after I had finished 
my inspection, the Surgeon suggested with true 
French tact, that it would be safer for his 
wounded if I could find it convenient to make my 
way back with as little delay as possible since 
the hour for the evening "strafe" was approach- 
ing. I could see no good reason why I should 
subject those already wounded men to further 
risk, and my mind reverted to the dark stains 
on the ground and the grotesque dead horse at 
the bend of the street — the mute testimony of 
what the German hate had accomplished the 
night before. I am not at all ashamed to say 
208 



TRANSPORTATION 

that it was at least one word for the wounded 
and one for myself, for I have never made any 
pretense that I enjoyed being under shell fire. 
I do not know whether one does get so accus- 
tomed to it that there is no eerie creep at the 
back of your neck when you hear the hoarse 
noise of an oncoming shell which gives only the 
advertisement that it is coming, but no informa- 
tion as to its exact destination. I do know, 
from personal experience, that for me, at least, 
there was always a tense moment until the burst 
had demonstrated that that one, anyhow, did 
not bear my nmnber. And so I was quite 
ready, having seen all that I had come for, to 
take my place in the front seat of the loaded 
ambulance for the return trip. 

We crept slowly out through the ruined little 
village where the shells were beginning to fall 
with increasing frequency, over the battered 
road and slowly on account of some engine 
trouble up the rise; along the parallel stretch 
of road where the black shrapnel still burst, 
around the comer and with our backs to 
S09 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

the Mort Homme and the lines back 
through the bleak blasted terrain again 
to Montzeville, where we found the same 
quiet confident Poilus and where the dead 
cannonnier still lay, his feet in their worn, hob- 
nailed shoes more grotesquely stiff than ever 
and the stains on the cloth over his face turn- 
ing from bright red to a dull brown. We 
lingered a while in front of the little dugout, 
chatting with the Sanitary personnel, and then 
back again through a throng of horse-drawn 
wagons, of camions, of diminutive "burros" 
which with their loads on their backs went up 
into the trenches themselves ; through all this 
which made up the nightly "train de ravitaille- 
ment'* to our night's lodging in billets in a 
sleepy French village where the sound of the 
ever pounding guns hammered in my ears like 
a pulse of the night. The next night, a German 
shell dropped on the place where I had been 
standing in front of the little dugout, and 
among those who paid the toll was one of the 
Ambulance drivers of the section, a lad whom I 
210 



TRAN SPORTATION 

had laughed and talked with the night before. 
And a few days later, back in a town further to 
the rear, on the same road a waiting convoy 
of motor ambulances came under the fire of 
high explosive from German 150 mm. shell and 
two more of the Section paid the price for their 
service. The next evening, I visited another 
post of the same character, further to the 
North where our fast flying car had transported 
us on our inspecting tour. 

To reach this post we went through 
a town, deserted of course, which the 
Germans were vigorously bombarding: went 
through it on the doubtful advice of a 
French soldier who seemed to think that it 
was not advisable to do so in face of the shell- 
ing. I am sure he was right, for when we had 
careened through the splintered streets to the 
roar of shells and the crash of smashed houses 
and were drawing peaceful breaths on the other 
side we were informed by another blue clad 
Poilu that our first informant was by way of 
being an idiot and that the town we sought did 
211 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

not lie in that direction at all, but that we 
should have taken the first turn to the right on 

the other side of S , the cheerful village 

we had just safely passed. And so back again 

through S and its harried thoroughfares 

and tottering houses. The second passing 
seemed to me entirely gratuitous and I could 
have cheerfully argued with our first mis- 
informant but we took no harm and found the 
right hand turn and the way we were seeking. 
The view as we approached the little town, or 
village, where lay our Aid Post was interesting. 
It was a relatively flat country, rolling a little, 
and the German lines lay on a long ridge in 
plain view and marked by the constant burst 
of the French shells. It was fascinating to 
watch these; they danced up in fierce white jets 
or brown columns, which sprung up eagerly at 
first and then lazily dissipated as they lost their 
first fierce energy and drifted away on the 
wings of the summer wind. They appeared 
with no apparent regularity as to lateral direc- 
tion. Sometimes there were four or more 
212 



TRANSPORTATION 

which all flowered at one point, the evidence that 
there was directed fire "by battery," and at 
other places single clouds showed that the bom- 
bardment was in slow order. The color of the 
bursts varied from the woolly clouds of the 
shrapnel, which hung in the sky, to the sudden 
upspringing from the earth of an inverted 
cone of gray and black and dun yellow, where 
the high explosive sent up its cloud with the 
riven earth and rock from the point of its im- 
pact. In between all was drowsy summer peace. 
The fields were high with grass, the summer 
twilight hush was in the air and the birds ranged 
over the fields in evening song before they 
sought their roosts. Scenes of this sort are 
incongruous ; it is the contrast between the 
struggle of man in his passion and the struggle 
of nature to hold to her own inflexible order 
the things that are hers. And finally, nature 
will conquer, for when the "shouting and the 
tumult dies, the Captains and the Kings depart" 
all this will come back to the purpose for which 
it was designed and the scars of man will heal 
213 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

on the landscape and remain as faint evidence 
of spent passion. 

At the outskirts of the village we changed 
from motor transport to walking, and I 
noticed that our chauffeur carefully turned 
the car around, backed in under the pre- 
carious shelter of a drunken looking wall 
and left the engine running. It is sometimes an 
advantage to have a flying start and not be 
dependent on the vagaries of a motor which, 
with the perverseness of inanimate objects, 
shows a disinclination to function. We found 
here the same dead town. They do look so 
pitifully dead, these abandoned French villages 
of the front lines. Everything in them cries 
out of the homely life which has been squeezed 
out of them. Here, the sign says, is a restau- 
rant — the only tangible evidence of it the 
blackened wall with the faded letters of the 
sign. There, the opened front of some one's 
house showing splintered furnishings and tat- 
tered curtains which wait the return of the fara- 
214 



TRANSPORTATION 

ily which may be in exile or gone beyond the 
possibility of any coming back. 

The streets are there but they are not streets, 
just echoing canons between gaunt skeletons 
of dwellings and littered with debris, battered 
belongings and shattered masonry and brick. 
It all seems dreary and dead and unaccountably 
still. One waits with expectant ear for the hum 
of human life, the sound of talk and laughter, 
the voices of the children at their evening games 
and the familiar human rustle of the homely 
peasant world before it puts itself to bed. Of 
course you know that it is not, and cannot be 
there, but it seems as though it ought to be and 
its absence makes the stillness more marked in 
this quiet time of the evening hush. And then 
you realize that there is no evening hush ; that 
you are conjuring up in the eye of your mind 
what ought to be in your own place, in the 
quiet hills of New England, the fastnesses of 
the Appalachians or on the wind swept prairies 
— ^wherever it is that memory places these 
scenes. The stillness is a mental conception 
215 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

and the physical senses are keenly aware of the 
life which is here, — the life which exists to take 
life. With the angry crash of shells, the noise 
of their oncoming, of their passing, the noise of 
breaking houses and falling ruins, the illusion 
of quiet passes and the interest quickly centers 
again in the ego and what is to happen to it. 
We made our entry here to the accompaniment 
of a very lively evening bombardment. Mostly 
six-inch shells which with their high explosive 
content shake not only your mental self in their 
burst but by their physical energy, rack and 
rock your very body itself in the violence of 
their explosion. They were dropping in all 
quarters of the village and it seemed to me dur- 
ing our brief quest of the aid post and the 
French officer in command of the village that 
their frequency increased. One broke in the 
street about a square ahead of us and shook 
down two uncertain houses in a golden haze of 
broken brick and dust and we could hear them 
falling in the streets to our right and left as 
we approached the partially destroyed building 
216 



TRANSPORTATION 

which sheltered the Headquarters of the Com- 
mandant and served also as the station for the 
first aid post and the waiting ambulance. We 
found a French soldier on guard in the court- 
yard of this building and in response to our 
inquiries were told that the French Major in 
command of the Sector was dining in the cellar 
with the Ambulance driver, the American lad 
who was on duty at this time in this harried 
village. We expressed a desire to see the Amer- 
ican and begged that the Major should not in- 
terrupt his evening meal on our account. In 
answer to our message, taken by the steel 
helmeted orderly, both the Ambulance boy and 
the Major emerged from the dark doorway of 
the cellar, the latter wiping from his long gray 
mustaches what I am sure must have been per- 
fectly good, "Pot au feu" or "Petite Marmite." 
One of the gravest crimes you can commit is to 
interrupt a French soldier at his meal and I 
was instantly contrite and apologetic. I was 
assured that it made not the slightest differ- 
ence; that he had finished; that he was glad to 
217 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

be interrupted; that it would be a pleasure if 
I would come and conclude the very poor repast 
with him. I regretted that I had already 
supped and assured him that I had come only 
to see the conditions under which the Ambulance 
Service worked at his post. He assured me of 
the satisfactory character of the service af- 
forded, indicated the waiting motor car in the 
corner of the court, and then asked me, with an 
earnest and thoughtful air, if I had happened 
to notice as I came into the village that "there 
was of a bombardment there this evening?" 
Just then a shell exploded across the street 
and cast bits of flotsam and jetsam over the 
high wall into the court, and rather than appear 
too stupid, I acknowledged that I had had a 
very grave suspicion that such was the case 
during my short walk through his altogether 
charming village. He became more animated 
and told me that he was each evening the recipi- 
ent of attentions of this kind but that this 
evening seemed to be the occasion -of an extra 
218 



TRANSPORTATION 

effort for some reason, or as he expressed it 
"Ce soir le Boche est tres, tres mechant." 
What the Boche was angry about he did not 
state. Continuing, he said that of course he 
felt honored by a visit from me, but that this 
was no place for me at present; that he was 
particularly glad to see me as I was the first 
American Officer who had so far visited him 
but did I have a motor car near ; that I was not 
only the first American Officer who had visited 
him, but the first one he had seen, but that in 
view of existent conditions, much as it distressed 
his sense of politeness he was compelled to sug- 
gest that I leave him before my blood might be 
on his head. That the shelling was rapidly 
growing more intense and that frankly, it was 
no place for one who did not have to be there. 
I recognized, from the evidence of my own 
senses, that there was a measure of truth in 
what he said and wishing him good luck and 
hoping some day for a more satisfactory meet- 
ing we left him in his desolate, shell infested 
9A9 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

little village and went back through the streets 
which shook with the quickened roar of high 
explosive to where the good little motor was 
still turning, and in it away through the soft 
summer night with our backs to death and 
carnage. 

Strange as the coincidence is, at this same 
village, in the same courtyard, the waiting Am- 
bulance driver was killed on the following even- 
ing by one of the shells of the "evening hate." 
In addition to duty of the kind described, there 
is much more which has to be accomplished by 
these Sections. It would not be practicable to 
split up the motors of the sections, assigning 
them to individual stations ; this is done only 
in places where there is unusual activity; in 
the others, except in time of attack, the evacua- 
tion of the wounded is accomplished according 
to schedule by cars assigned to the duty and 
which make daily fixed runs over an established 
route. These "tournee" cars are due at cer- 
tain of the collecting points at a certain time 
each day and such cases as can without preju- 
220 



TRANSPORTATION 

dice to their condition wait for the daily col- 
lection, are held for it. In the event of urgent 
necessity, a telephone call is sent in and a spe- 
cial run is made. 



CHAPTER VI 



FRONT LINES 



To any one making inquiry in regard to con- 
ditions during the time of war, it is natural 
that the thing which should have the strongest 
personal appeal is just what exists at the actual 
point of conflict ; where the two forces come to- 
gether. From the standpoint of the medical 
officer, this point, while important in relation 
to immediate treatment, is only a step in the 
complicated scheme which stretches back into 
the interior and leads to the ultimate restora- 
tion of the wounded man to a state of health 
sufficient to make him a possible effective again 
on the firing line. 

A trench is exactly what the word indicates. 
It is a ditch dug in the ground to a depth gov- 
erned by the nature of the soil and may range 
from a few feet to six, seven, or eight. The 



FRONT LINES 

side towards the enemy, the "parapet," is built 
up with sandbags. The rear slope is called the 
"parados." Along the line of these first 
trenches many casualties of course occur, not 
only from direct infantry assault, but from the 
effect of artillery fire, and it is necessary that 
provision be made by the medical corps for the 
care of men who are wounded during attacks 
of any kind. The first station of the medical 
corps for the care of wounded is the "refuge 
for wounded." This varies in accordance with 
the possibility of construction from a hole in 
the trench wall to a well constructed and thor- 
oughly roofed dugout, manned by a certain 
number of sanitary corps personnel and pre- 
sided over by a medical officer and affording 
fairly thorough treatment, as far as first aid 
goes, for any wounded who may be brought to 
it. 

The wounded from the trenches are brought 
into these refuges, if unable to walk, by the regi- 
mental litter bearers and held there until evacu- 
ation is possible to the first aid post, which is 
223 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

farther in the rear. The first aid post is situ- 
ated farther behind the lines at the beginning of 
the "boyau." A "boyau" is the communica- 
tion trench which goes from the relatively-safe 
zone up to the first line trenches and derives 
its name from its similarity to the exact mean- 
ing of the word in French. "Boyau" means in 
French, an intestine, and the word was bor- 
rowed and applied to these approaches on 
account of the tortuous character of their con- 
struction, which was necessary to avoid enfilad- 
ing shell-fire. The frequency of the refuges for 
wounded and the first aid stations is governed 
largely by the character of the terrain in which 
the operations take place. In one sector which 
I visited in the defenses near Verdun, on a 
front of some three miles, there were only two 
of the communication trenches, "boyaus," and 
I think only two refuges for wounded. The 
consequence was that all wounded in the trench 
on this front had to be brought to one extrem- 
ity or the other and from there carried back by 
litter to the first aid station at the end of the 
SiM 



FRONT LINES 

two converging boyaus. Work at the refuge 
for wounded is necessarily of a very sketchy 
character ; hemorrhages stopped, first aid dress- 
ings applied, and perhaps a stimulant given, 
but no attempt at any formal surgical care. 
This is deferred until the man is carried to the 
first aid post already referred to, and even here 
nothing of any importance is attempted; only 
that which is absolutely necessary to insure his 
safe transit to one of the more permanent or- 
ganizations in the rear. 

As typical of the circumstances attending 
this service, I quote the following account of a 
trip which I made to inspect this class of work 
in a French sector in a region in France, which, 
due to military necessity, must naturally be 
without a name. 

I went by motor with the officer accredited 
to me as my guide and counselor to the head- 
quarters of the General commanding the divi- 
sion, and there we picked up the division sur- 
geon who had the direction of the sanitary work 
in the sector. It was a hilly country, but, in 
225 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

view of military necessity, the former trails in 
the region had been enlarged and completed 
into military roads which would have been most 
admirable in any section of our own country. 
We went by motor, constantly up hill. At 
many places high brush fences had been built to 
hide ("camouflage") the road from German 
observation. After half an hour we halted in 
front of the Ambulance,* one of the front line 
units at the end of wheel transportation, except 
for Ford ambulances, which went half a mile 
further. We walked on through mud and mist 
down hill and up ; over stones and pine needles 
until we reached the Poste de Secour, or first 
aid station, at the beginning of the approach 
trench which led to the front. After inspecting 
this, we stepped into the boyau and went on to 
the front line trenches. This boyau was a 
trench just wide enough for us to walk in and 
zig-zagged, so that no great length of it could 
be raked by shell explosions. Even in flat coun- 

* In continental parlance, an "Ambulance" is not a ve- 
liicle for the transport of wounded, but any mo6z7e hospital. 

226 



FRONT LINES 

try such walking is not very good, and here it 
was up hill all the way and muddy and rocky, 
and I slipped and slid and caromed from one 
sticky earth wall to another and sweated until 
I was like Mr. Mantalini, a "demmed cold, 
moist, unpleasant body." The blessed thing 
ramified and branched and right-angled almost 
as much as a city. I should have been lost with- 
out a guide. 

In due time we came to the company 
shelter for the wounded, which opened directly 
into the boyau on one side and on the other 
toward the first line trenches which were less 
than 40 feet away. The shelter was the usual 
type, built into the side of the hill and heavily 
roofed with rock and dirt and stones. All the 
men in these trenches lived in them and during 
shell-fire only six or eight lookouts were actu- 
ally exposed in the open. There was some 
desultory bombardment at this time, and Ger- 
man shells were dropping at various places 
along the front. One of the French hospital 
corps men smiled cheerfully at me and made a 
227 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Temark in French, which for a few minutes puz- 
zled me. After thinking it over, I realized the 
fact that he was not only talking a foreign 
language, but that he stuttered while he talked 
it and that the idea that he wished to convey 
was that to-day the German shells seemed to be 
altogether rotten ("p-p-p-pourris") — referring 
to the fact that several in our vicinity had not 
exploded. 

We were met here by the Captain in com- 
mand of the sector and went out with him to 
make the round of the front trenches, which 
were only four minutes from the shelter. He 
explained to us that the closest point in his line 
was only 20 meters from the German trenches 
and asked that we speak softly, as they were 
often irritable. We made our way through 300 
yards or so, which was his front, and it was very 
real and grim and interesting; the still men 
opposite their loopholes, the supply of car- 
tridges loose in boxes, the hand grenades laid 
in readiness and the platforms built to throw 
them from. I was allowed to look through a 
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FRONT LINES 

slit in the steel plate, but for only a moment on 
penalty of having some wary "boche" shoot me 
in the eye. I saw a waste of jagged barbed 
wire and torn earth and some 60 feet away a 
line of raw earth which marked the beginning 
of militant Germany and behind which, I sup- 
pose, watchful eyes were also peering. 

It smelled of dead men here; there was one 
that I could see hanging in the barbed wire just 
outside, who seemed to be a cause of particular 
annoyance to the French inhabitants of the 
trench. He was provokingly near, but due 
to the proximity of the lines they were unable 
to get out to disentangle him and place him be- 
low ground where he would be less offensive. 
The medical man in the sector explained to me 
very vivaciously that they had tried to render 
him less obnoxious by throwing lime at him, by 
squirting petroleum and crude oil, and various 
other ways, but that he was always in evidence 
when the wind was in the direction in which it 
was that day. There were many others further 
out, and, personally, I could see no particular 
229 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

reason to be so disturbed about one individual. 
At one end of the trench an automobile horn of 
the Klaxon type, I think, was fastened, and 
when that squawked it was better to put on your 
mask, for it meant that the deadly gray, green 
gas was coming. Aside from the occasional ex- 
plosions of the German shells, it was very still, 
the stillness of the high places accentuated by 
the tension of ever waiting for the scream of 
shells and the scrambling rush of an infantry at- 
tack. It seemed like Sunday : the Sunday hush. 
Of course there were no guns, cannon, up there ; 
it was too close for that. They were back in 
the valley and tossed their noisy, steel death 
over the ranges and into the trench under the 
guidance of telephone direction. 

The Captain spread out his map and showed 
us where the lines ran. We were then over at 
one end of the trenches, and I left my little 
French doctor friend and went back with the 
Captain to his mess house, a little wooden shack 
just behind the lines, where he promised me a 
cup of tea. I was alone with the Captain, the 
230 



FRONT LINES 

others lagging behind. Just as the tea was 
about to be served, before we had sat down, 
there was a whining scream, which ended in a 
jarring explosion, just outside. On the Cap- 
tain's orders, we immediately "beat it" for his 
dugout, which was not far away but far enough 
to allow two more shells to explode before we 
reached it. I did not know where the others 
had gone : that was their business. 

At the same time that we were in the front 
trench an inspection had been made by a party 
of French Engineer Officers, and it is probable 
that the Germans, hearing an undue amount of 
conversation and noise in the French trench, 
had concluded that it would be well to shell it. 
For an hour and a half we sat there and listened 
to things blow up outside. The Captain's dug- 
out was small, unpretentious and simple, but it 
seemed very comfortable. It had a bunk and 
table, one chair, and a small cooking stove. He 
cheered me by telling me that if one of the larger 
shells dropped on the dugout, we should all 
disappear in fragments, as it was only about 
231 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

half completed and by no means shell-proof. 

It did not sound good to me, but the whole 
thing was so interesting that I did not have 
much time to worry. They were firing 77 m.m. 
and 150 m.m. shells all loaded with high explo- 
sive, and the racket was tremendous. The explo- 
sions were very sharp and shook and jarred 
the ground, especially those which struck in our 
immediate vicinity, and there were quite a num- 
ber of these. Pieces rattled against the dugout, 
and the air was fiUed with the whine of falling 
shell fragments. 

They also threw bombs ("minenwerfer"), 
which added to the general racket, and when the 
French machine guns opened up to check an 
infantry attack which the Germans started, it 
sounded like bedlam broken loose. In addition 
to this, they also gave us the benefit of occa- 
sional showers of hand grenades. 

During the hour and a half that this demon- 
stration lasted, they dropped forty-eight 150 
m.m. and forty 77 m.m. shells on this small 
corner of the French lines. 
232 



FRONT LINES 

To make it additionally interesting to me, 
the Captain sat on one end of his bunk with his 
telephone at his ear and I on the other end of 
the bunk. From his end of the conversation I 
could tell what was happening and what was 
going to happen. I understood when "P-3" 
(a designation of a part of his lines) called him 
that P-3 reported a German infantry attack 
starting opposite that position, and I heard 
the order go to P-3 to open up with the machine 
guns, and sure enough, in a few seconds we 
heard the "put-put-put" — the "drumming of 
the guns." Fortunately for my peace of mind, 
that infantry attack died then and there ; they 
got a very short distance beyond the German 
trenches. 

«p_g5> complained that the Boches were 
knocking his trench to pieces by their artillery 
fire. All right, we would fix that, so we tele- 
phoned to a battery back in the valley and in a 
few moments big French shells commenced to 
scream over our heads on their way to Deutsch- 
land. It must have helped, for P-2 called up 
233 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

soon after and said that the Germans had 
stopped shelling him. 

"La Coulee" we could not get at all. Tried 
several times and finally gave up in disgust: it 
was a case of "Ligne Coupee," which is not the 
familiar "line's busy" of peaceful hours but 
meant that a German shell had stepped on the 
wire. It was like being in a prompter's box 
behind the scenes, and the whole thing was too 
fascinatingly interesting to allow much time 
for being frightened. In the intervals between 
telephone calls we chatted of common-place 
things, and I made bad jokes in bad French to 
show that the American Army was a good 
sport. The Captain passed around some candy 
and cake which had come up to him for his 
Saint's Day, and I furnished some cigars, and 
we munched and smoked and listened to the 
telephone and the racket outside, and the good 
little stove dried me out and I was really quite 
contented. You see, if one came over here and 
never heard shells burst or bullets whine, he 
could not expect to excite much interest on his 
234 



FRONT LINES 

return to his own country. I felt that I was 
really acquiring a noisy education which might 
eventually lead to a wartime diploma. 

At the end of an hour and a half the whole 
thing stopped. It was carried out with Ger- 
man method in three periods of a half hour 
each, with an interval of some minutes between 
each half hour's shelling, evidently with the 
intention of drawing the French troops into 
the trenches again where they would be sub^ 
jected to further shell fire in the open. The 
wounded from this attack were not many ; the 
exact number I do not recollect, but due to the 
fact that the majority of the troops were with- 
drawn to shelters and only the necessary num- 
ber of lookouts left to give warning of the 
infantry attack, the casualties were not nearly 
so heavy as they would have been under other 
circumstances. 

There was, to me, a very sad ending to this 
experience. I have spoken of the little French 
doctor who was explaining to me his arrange- 
ment in his shelter for the wounded and the 
235 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

manner in which he cared for his injured sol- 
diers. I stated that I left him in the trench 
just as I went down with the Captain for the 
cup of tea, which I never got, in his mess house. 
The second or third shell which dropped there 
fell on this line of the trenches and one of them 
squarely on the little doctor. 

All that was left was shattered sand bags, a 
hole in the parapet and some red splotches and 
fragments of clothes on the parados. My little 
medical friend disappeared then and there as 
completely as though he had been translated 
like Elijah in his chariot. A six-inch shell 
loaded with high explosive (which means glori- 
fied dynamite) leaves little trace of anything 
in the immediate vicinity of its explosion. 

In mountain country such as that described 
above, the shelters for the wounded are con- 
structed with a view to taking advantage, so 
far as possible, of the natural protection af- 
forded by the ground. Instead of being en- 
tirely built up they are sunk into the side of the 
hill, much as one would start the tunnel of a 
236 



FRONT LINES 

mine. After a little distance, the cover of the 
ground overhead gives adequate shelter from 
shell bursts and up to that point this is pro- 
vided by building up with tree trunks, earth and 
rocks. The extent of this covering is about 
fifteen or eighteen feet and this is sufficient to 
take care of the smaller and medium caliber 
shells ; for those of from 220 m.m. up, there is 
hardly any man-made shelter which is sufficient 
to afford immunity. These underground bur- 
rows vary in dimensions from what is in effect 
a straight rabbit burrow up to elaborate sys- 
tems of underground habitations which include 
several underground rooms, operating room, 
ward, waiting rooms and quarters for the 
detachment which mans them. I saw one such 
in a first line Ambulance which was some thirty 
feet under ground and was in reality an exceed- 
ingly well arranged little hospital. It was 
lighted by electricity, and could care for some 
thirty patients at a time. Construction of 
this type is the outgrowth of course of the fixed 
front fighting, of the trench warfare where 
237 



D 



Re|-age 



O ' o. g »" a \-w 




Front Line Shelter 
238 



D 



Re|u.ge ^ 



Pi<x^ra.rn 




Front Linb Shelter 



SS9 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

there is no decided fluctuation in the advance 
or retreat of the contending forces. 

The continuance of this kind of warfare has 
given ample opportunity to perfect the style 
of these shelters and to-day they are built in 
accordance with pretty definite rules. With 
the smaller shelters, it is of course an object 
to take advantage of all available space. In 
view of this, the entrance and exit have a definite 
arrangement as shown in the accompanying 
diagrams. In "a" the entrance is not properly 
placed, for in order to come in and out of the 
dugout it is necessary for the wounded to 
traverse the entire length of the shelter, thereby 
interfering with work. In "b" the wounded 
pass across one end of the dugout and do not 
take up needed space. Many of the wounded 
who come to the station do not need any- 
thing more than an inspection to verify 
the fact that their dressings are prop- 
erly applied and that they are tagged, 
and a man stationed at the entrance in 
"b" can carry on this work without the neces- 
240 



FRONT LINES 

sity for men passing through the entire length 
of the shelter. Another advantage of this 
arrangement is that there is a smaller target 
afforded for hostile shell fire since the narrow 
dimension of the dugout is presented to the 
enemy. Finally, this arrangement gives the 
two entrances which have been shown to be a 
necessary precaution in the event that one be 
closed by a shell explosion. 

The construction of shelters of this type 
means a great deal of labor, for the excavation 
in itself is no mean job and oftentimes it means 
work in rocky ground which magnifies the task. 
In some of the shelters of this style which I saw,^ 
"camouflage" had been cleverly employed. One 
I remember particularly which was on a hill 
side in plain view of the German lines. It was 
in a forest and in the immediate vicinity most 
of the trees had been felled for purposes of 
construction. The clever French overcame this 
difficulty by painting and setting up large can- 
YSiS screens like a woods scene on the back drop 
in a theater which effectually hid the Poste de 
241 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Secour from prying enemy eyes — and shells. 
The Medical Inspector with whom I visited this 
station told me that it was commonly known as 
"The Theater" and seemed amused when I told 
him that under those circumstances I should 
be very glad to meet some of the chorus. 

Much has been written of "camouflage" and 
many jokes perpetrated at its expense, but I 
can assure any of the jokers that it is a very 
comforting sensation to know that you are 
traversing in comparative safety a road or path 
which without it would probably be an inferno 
of shrapnel and high explosive. I have only 
the most kindly and respectful attitude for that 
overworked word and all that it really means in 
the grim work of war. 

Shelters of the type described and illustrated 
are of course possible only where the terrain 
lends itself to their construction : in hilly coun- 
try. They are probably the most satisfactory 
kind since by burrowing into the hillside it is 
possible in a short distance to put enough earth 
over your head to protect you against the 
242 



FRONT LINES 

effect of the average shell burst. Since this is 
not always possible, the character of the Poste 
de Secour varies according to the country in 
which it exists. 

In flat country such as that of the Somme 
or farther north, they often consist of a wide 
ditch heavily roofed with sand bags ; not so 
secure as the hillside type, but affording the 
best protection under the circumstances. I 
have seen them established in the cellars of un- 
destroyed buildings and in cellars which still 
existed under a pile of bricks and masonry, all 
that was left of a shell torn house. Some of 
them I have seen located in churches where the 
surgeons carried on their work near the altar 
and in the shadow of the cross. Tliis did not 
seem inappropriate somehow, for as Christ 
strove to heal the wounds of the soul, so these 
weary French Medical men were trying to 
patch the bodily wounds in this His house; the 
house of the Great Physician. Still others I 
have seen which were nothing more than a 
sheltering angle of standing wall and battered 
243 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

debris; scant protection save from the flying 
steel fragments and the vicious whip of bullets. 
Wherever they are located and however they 
are made they are a tacit tribute to the recogni- 
tion that in the warfare of to-day the essential 
thing for the welfare of the soldier is prompt 
treatment; as prompt as possible. Views have 
changed in this respect since August, 1914. 
Before that time it was generally conceded that 
the majority of the serious surgical work should 
be done at some distance from the fighting front, 
in the Zone of the Interior. Experience proved 
that this was wrong, and that a man's chances 
for recovery decreased, to speak in terms of 
mathematics, in direct relation to the time which 
elapsed before he went on the table for opera- 
tion. I do not intend to give the impression 
that major operations are attempted in the 
first line Sanitary Units. That of course is out 
of the question, but even so, the treatment that 
Is accorded men at these places is much 
better and more thorough now than formerly, 
and the whole process Is shoved up from the 
244 



FRONT LINES 

rear lines so that the wounded receive extended 
care now at a point where formerly little was 
done for them. 

I think it cannot be difEcult to understand 
that this front line work is hard work for the 
Medical personnel which carries it out. The 
Doctors who do it are really entitled to a 
different classification than that of "non-com- 
batant." If "non-combatant" means just a 
man who does not fight, they fall within the 
category. But when you come to consider that 
they bear in common with their brothers of the 
line all the danger of these advanced positions ; 
that they are subject to the same intense bom- 
bardment, the same shock of assault, of gas and 
all the nerve wracking terrors of life in the 
trenches, it seems as though there ought to be 
at least a brevet title which would differentiate 
between the accepted meaning of the term and 
the actuality in these circumstances. The wast- 
age of Sanitary personnel has been high in the 
present war and, aside from my little Doctor 
who died a spattered mass on the wall of the 
245 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

parados, blown out of existence by German 
high explosive, there may have been many 
others who have found the end of the great 
adventure while bringing aid and comfort to 
their stricken comrades. The Croix de Guerre 
and the Gold wound chevron on the right arm 
is not uncommon on the uniform of the man who 
carries the insignia of the Sanitary Service. 

I would not have it understood that there is 
any unusual courage among the men of the 
Medical Profession who go to war, but to cor- 
rect an impression more or less current that 
their job lies well to the rear, safe from the 
carnage of the combatant forces. 

I think that there is one thought which oc- 
curs to every man in contemplation of entrance 
into battle : whether he is nervously waiting his 
first experience under actual conditions, or 
whether he is simply going through a period 
of self analysis safe in his own home, with no 
immediate prospect of exposure to the danger 
of hostile fire. 

That is, "What would I do the first time I 
M6 



FRONT LINES 

was under fire? Would I run away? Would 
I be afraid?" It is I think a perfectly natural 
curiosity, and one that must occur to every 
one in his soul analysis. The answer to part 
of it at least, is in the record of armies since 
the beginning of time, for armies as a whole 
do not run away, and according to the law of 
averages the normal man is not in that respect a 
coward. It has always seemed to me that any 
man in peril of his life, in danger of immediate 
death, must have a certain amount of fear. 
That this is in varying degree, and may be 
lessened by constant exposure to the same sort 
of danger; but that at the commencement of 
any danger there must be for him the inevitable 
dread of losing that which counts most to all of 
us — life. Moreover, it has seemed to me that 
this same fear is the governing factor in de- 
termining whether one stands fast or deserts. 
Man has in danger, two fears. One that he 
will be killed. One that he will forever shame 
himself in the eyes of his fellows by running 
away. He stands as the pivotal point in the 
247 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

balance which carries on either pan these two 
fears, and whichever one is the strongest, de- 
termines him as brave man or coward. In other 
words, I believe that the right kind of fear is 
really bravery. 

In a little book * written by a young French- 
man named Paul Lintier who served until his 
death with a battery of 75, there is such a clear 
exposition of this that I have translated it and 
am quoting it here. It seems to me to sura up 
the situation very precisely, and we can excuse 
to his pride in his arm of the service the special 
reservation he makes for the Artillery soldier. 
He was killed by a German shell while serving 
with his battery and before he was twenty-three 
years old. 

"As far as we are concerned, there is 
nothing to do. Over towards Stenay the sky 
line is unchanged and empty. For some hours 
past large shells have been dropping by threes, 
marking with the punctuation of their black 

* "Ma Piece" By Paul Lintier. Published by Plon-Nour- 
rit & Co., Paris, 1917. 

248 



FRONT LINES 

bursts, the fair green page of the prairie where 
no troops are. We are easily in range of these 
heavy guns and there is no certainty that at 
any minute a change in their elevation may not 
bring us under their fire. Yet no one seems 
to think of it. 

"I sometimes wonder at the marvelous qual- 
ity of adaptability which is the base of human 
character. We accustom ourselves to constant 
danger just as we do to bitter privations, to 
the uncertainty of the morrow. 

"I used to ask myself, before the war, how 
it was that the aged who had almost reached 
the limits of human life, could live so peacefully 
in the shadow of imminent death. Now, I think 
I understand, for to us in these circumstances, 
the risk of death has come to be just a part of 
the daily routine. One counts on it and is little 
astonished and less afraid. And then, each 
day augments our courage. 

"The human organism becomes callous under 
repeated exposure to the same terrors and the 
shaking nerves grow calm. 
249 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

"The steady fight for mastery of self wins 
in the end and that is the courage of the soldier. 
One is not born brave — he becomes so. 

"The instinctive desire not to be overcome is 
always a factor. Furthermore, one must live, 
to the best of his ability, whether it be in the 
turmoil of conflict, or in times of peace. You 
have to accommodate yourself to this new 
fashion of life, however wretched, however pre- 
carious it be. 

"Finally, the thing which counts above all 
else — that which makes the situation almost 
intolerable — is fear, the very essence of fear. 
That mU'St be overcome, and one does over- 
come it. 

"Together with the desire to live, no matter 
how wretched life may be, the sense of duty and 
regard for opinion — in a word, honor — is the 
great educational factor in determining the 
character of the soldier under fire. I do not 
claim this as original ; it is merely my personal 
evidence in the matter. 

"Furthermore, I believe that this education 
250 



FRONT LINES 

in courage is easier for us than for the Infantry, 
the hardest tried arm in the service. An artil- 
leryman in action of a very truth cannot run 
away ; every one in his battery would see it ; his 
disgrace would be patent to all and beyond 
remedy. 

*'So then, fear, extreme fear, seems to me to 
be, in effect, the abolishing of the power of 
will. The man who is not capable of stand- 
ing calmly face to face with danger is also in 
the majority of cases equally incapable of 
overcoming that innate, dominant sense of 
shame which would result from public flight. 
For the act of running away there is requisite 
a certain amount of will power, a sort of quasi- 
bravery. 

"The Infantryman not infrequently finds 
himself alone while in battle. Under cannon 
fire a man crouched on the ground some four 
meters from his nearest neighbor is in reality 
very much alone. His individual fancies and 
worries absorb all his attention and from this 
cause he may yield to the temptation to lag, 
251 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

to hide himself and finally run away. Later in 
the day when he has rejoined his company it 
is easy to say that he lost his squad and joined 
another. He has good grounds for supposing 
that none of his comrades will know the truth — 
and he has this knowledge before he deserts so 
that he does not have to combat the overpower- 
ing repugnance to a flight in full view of his 
fellows. 

"To stand fast under fire means much. To 
preserve your sang froid is another proposition 
in the hell of modern battle conditions. One 
is instantly afraid; you sweat and your body 
is shaken as though by an ague. It is irresist- 
ible; it seems that there is no escape from 
death. The form of danger is unfamiliar; one 
you have never known. The imagination mag- 
nifies it and you can neither think nor reason. 
The burst of the shells, their acrid smoke and 
the scream of the flying fragments add to the 
stupor of these first moments. 

"However, neither the flash of the exploding 
melinite, the noise of the detonation nor the 
252 



FRONT LINES 

cloud of greasy black smoke is in itself a dangCF. 
I think the significant fact is that they are the 
accompanying heralds of the danger and that 
they are all thrust on you at once and that it 
is this which gives them their significance. 

"Very soon one realizes that smoke in itself 
is harmless : that the scream of the advancing 
shell is the warning of its approach and of its 
direction. You do not turn your back at every 
shot and you take cover only with the certainty 
that it is necessary. 

"Then it is that we realize that fear has not 
conquered us, but we it. There lies the crux 
of the whole situation. 



"Another thing which makes courage easier 
for the Artilleryman is the very organization 
itself of his service. The Infantry, the Cavalry, 
the Engineers, each of them is a self-contained 
unit. For us, the Artillery, the unit is the gun 
itself. The seven men who serve it are the 
intimately interwoven brain and sinew of a 
253 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

being which with them comes to life — the gun 
in action. 

"This interlocking of seven men, each to the 
other and all to the gun, renders any short- 
coming so patent, so serious in its consequences 
Jhat the resulting shame could not be borne. 

"Then also, this close affiliation makes easy 
that mysterious psychologic transference of 
thought and soul and the presence of one or 
two brave and resolute spirits is often sufficient 
to set the standard of courage for the entire 
gun-crew." 

There was a Poste de Secour of the cellar 
type that I remember very vividly. It was in 
the defenses about Verdun and I had made my 
visit there thinking that I should be in time 
to see something of a rumored French offensive. 
As it turned out, I was a little too early and got 
there during the preliminary artillery prepara- 
tion. Artillery preparation has been described 
a number of times by people who have better 
command of adjectives than I so in regard to 
what it is I merely mention that any pen pic- 
254! 



FRONT LINES 

ture leaves one entirely at sea as to a realiza- 
tion of the actuality. It is just magnified 
noise which shakes your very being, physical 
and mental ; a constant roar of the guns on your 
side and the exploding shells from the counter- 
battery work of the other. 

This Poste de Secour was in what remained 
of the cellar of a drunkenly battered chateau 
and was in sight of those two hard fought for 
points, the "Mort Homme" and "Hill 304." 
About it was nothing but the evidence of the 
destructive power of high explosive shells and 
they were coming in with methodical regularity 
while I was there. The cellar itself had been 
shored up with heavy timber balks to give 
additional resistance against any direct hit. 
It was a vaulted chamber so low that I had to 
stoop to make my way about, and the only 
light was a few kerosene lamps and the little 
French hand lights without a chimney which 
are so common in the peasant houses. This was 
presided over by a French Medical officer and 
his detachment of "Infirmlers.'* An "Infirmier" 
255 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

would correspond in our own service with a 
Hospital Corps private who had received in- 
struction in First Aid work and knew enough 
to assist in dressing the wounds. 

Among them was a man who had been in the 
United States and I was amused, and a little 
touched, by the immediate interest he took in 
me and my uniform. He was eager to talk 
and my queries in regard to conditions there 
were often parried by him with requests for 
information in regard to places in my own 
country which he knew. 

The Medical Officer said that he had b€en 
in this sector for the past ten months and would 
welcome life for a time in a quieter place, but 
he seemed proud of his work and of what he 
was doing for the wounded. Things were 
necessarily crude; you cannot reasonably ex- 
pect much "de luxe" when the main and essen- 
tial object is to have a place which shall not 
be battered about your ears by falling shell. 
There was an operating table for such work 
as was imperative ; the stopping of hemorrhage 
256 



FRONT LINES 

and anything that could not be deferred until 
the wounded had reached the next point back. 
There were supplies of dressings, arrangements 
to give the men hot soup and some eight or 
ten spring bunks fastened between the uprights 
which shored up the cellar. There were some 
wounded there waiting transport to the ambu- 
lances of the rear; none very seriously hurt 
though the occasional blood stains on a bandage 
gave mute evidence that below the snowy cover- 
ing there was an area of painful and tortured 
flesh. They were a patient and uncomplaining 
lot; just seemed to take it as a part of the 
game and during the time I was there I heard 
no moans, and no complainings: just the chat- 
ter of low voiced French as they exchanged 
views on the topics of their day. 

The Medical Officer said that this was a hard 
post since the wounded had to be transported 
for some three quarters of a mile or more by 
hand, and litter transport through a trench is 
always a difficult problem. I asked him about 
the various kinds of special litter which have 
257 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

been devised to meet the narrow angles of the 
trenches and he shrugged his shoulders and 
said that these were well enough in their way 
and undoubtedly a good thing when you had 
them — but in a large proportion or the cases 
they were not available and they had simplified 
the matter and come to a practical solution of 
the matter. Each French soldier has a piece 
of canvas which corresponds in a measure to 
one of our shelter halves. These they use in 
the transport through the trenches. 

To illustrate, he had one brought out and 
laid in the narrow aisle between the tiers of 
posts and I lay down on it. It reached from 
my head to about the middle of my lower leg. 
They took up the diagonal corners (right leg 
and left shoulder and left leg and right shoul- 
der) and knotted them over the center of my 
belly. Then a pole was slipped under the knots 
and as they raised me from the floor the canvas 
enveloped me as in a hammock. Unless there 
is a fracture of the leg below the knee, the legs 
swing down from the knee without support, thus 
258 



FRONT LINES 

shortening the length of the litter and making it 
possible to turn corners. It felt comfortable 
and seemed practical, for the man almost always 
has this sheet with him and it is not difficult 
to find a short pole or piece of plank to com- 
plete the apparatus. 

I was the recipient of a pretty piece of cour- 
tesy in this sector. The men in the trenches 
amuse themselves when they are not busy killing 
the Boche or being killed by him, by making 
such articles as their ingenuity and skill sug- 
gest from fragments of shell and shell case. I 
stopped in a trench to watch one of these first 
line mechanics who was busy with file and pliers 
and a little soldering outfit making "briquets" 
which are the cigarette lighters which are so 
common in France as a substitute for matches. 
There were several completed on the fire step 
before him and knowing that they were made 
for sale I took out a roll of franc notes after 
examining several of them. Before I could 
make an offer this bearded dirty artisan turned 
to me with a delightful smile and said: "Mon- 
259 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

sieur is not only the first American Officer who 
has been in this trench, but also he is the first 
American Officer I have had the pleasure of 
seeing. That being the case, will monsieur le 
Majeur (general term for a Medical Officer) 
forget for a minute that I am merely a French 
Poilu, allow me the courtesy that exists between 
all gentlemen of whatever nation and accept 
with my compliments such of these briquets as 
may seem desirable to him? Please as a favor 
to me." 

Indeed I did. I blushed a little, put my notes 
in my pocket and took the one I liked the best 
and thanked Monsieur the Poilu for his fine 
courtesy and good feeling. I still have that 
briquet with my initials on it and the date and 
the name of the sector. It was continual little 
acts of sincere kindness such as this that en- 
deared the French people to me. In two years 
I never knew one who was not kindly and con- 
siderate. 



CHAPTER VII 



CONCLUSION 



Duty such as it was my lot to perform for 
two years in France must, of necessity, have its 
sad side as a marked feature. Constant asso- 
ciation with the maimed and the sick does not 
make for a cheery existence. 

Yet, even so, there was much about it which 
was very well worth while, aside from the pro- 
fessional interest which can be understood. 
From the standpoint of the wounded themselves, 
there was the lesson of cheerfulness in adversity, 
of patience under severe loss and the evidence 
of trying to make the best of what circumstance 
had left to build up and go on with. I have 
referred in several of the preceding pages to 
this trait among the wounded French and it 
seems to me now, as I look back, to be par- 
261 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

ticularly fine and something that it was well 
to have seen and to know about. 

This cheeriness had no evidence of being 
forced; it seemed entirely spontaneous and to 
be an innate part of the character. They met 
things with their chins up and with a grin. 
They had a joke or a comical word for almost 
any situation providing it did not carry them 
beyond the bounds of their strength. Then, 
though there might be no smile nor jest, the dig- 
nity with which they closed their teeth and 
silently endured the necessary merciful torture 
was as fine to see as the lightheartedness of 
their easier moments. 

It is fortunate that even a Military Observer 
of medical procedure can find at times a side 
of life that is not quite so soberly tinctured 
with pain and sadness as that which falls in 
the field of his duties. Aside from those with 
whom I came in contact in the course of my 
official wanderings, I made many other friends. 
I made many among those with whom I was 
thrown officially and as I came to know them 
262 



CONCLUSION 

better I was impressed vrith the fine courtesy 
which was everywhere shown me. 

We, here in the United States, have some 
erroneous ideas in respect to the people of 
France. The view that they are volatile, and 
not a race of fixed determination and persever- 
ance, is altogether at variance with their true 
character, as will soon be apparent to any one 
who is associated with them. Their true qual- 
ity of determination and dogged persistence has 
been too clearly demonstrated during the strug- 
gle with Germany to allow one to continue in 
this estimate. Again, I think that many of 
us have been taught to believe that "French 
courtesy" was a trait which existed only so far 
as a surface manifestation went; that it was 
superficial and not whole hearted. My own 
experience went entirely to disprove this and 
I found not only the courtesy of manner of 
which I had heard but a simple and direct sin- 
cerity and kindliness which added the solid body 
to what without it would have been a shallow 
veneer. I had ample opportunity to judge 
263 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

and was speedily convinced that my former 
estimate had been altogether wrong. 

Furthermore, they are not, physically, a 
small people. They are not perhaps on the 
average up to our standard of stature, but they 
are extremely stocky and the men as a rule 
well developed and thick through the chest. 
The French "poilu" trudges around winter and 
summer loaded down with various articles of 
equipment which make him look like an animated 
Christmas tree, and he does it as an entire 
matter of course and would be surprised, I 
think, if any one suggested that his load was in 
any way excessive. 

A story was told me in this connection which 
I think illustrates the point. On a long march, 
one of the privates added to his own load the 
pack of a comrade who was ill and not fit to 
bear his own burden for the time being. One 
of the Company Officers noticing the circum- 
stance kept his eye from time to time on the 
cheerful one who was doing double carrier duty. 
As he passed him later in the march he was 
264 



CONCLUSION 

astonished and a little perturbed to see that in 
addition to his own and his comrade's pack the 
soldier had super-imposed a good sized dog, the 
company mascot. He called the soldier's at- 
tention to the fact that he was already carrying 
two loads and asked what he meant by adding 
the dog to his already too large pack. The 
Poilu looked at him gravely, and with the air 
of explaining a perfectly simple state of affairs 
responded, "Mais, mon Capitaine, le chien est 
fatigue." I do not know whether that has any 
foundation in fact, but I do know that they 
carry with indifference as a daily routine a mis- 
cellaneous assortment of equipment that it made 
me tired just to look at. 

One afternoon I was walking down the 
Champs Elysee between two French officer 
friends. One was six feet four and the other 
six feet three. Stopping I commenced to 
laugh: one of them said with the permissable 
familiarity of friendship, "Well, idiot, what are 
you laughing at now?" The other joined in, 
"Yes, tell us the joke in order that we may 
265 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

laugh together if it is so funny." I explained 
that I was thinking from my lowly altitude of 
five feet eleven inches of the description in my 
early school Geography which stated that "The 
French are a slight people, gay hearted and 
fond of dancing and light wines." We laughed 
together then, and if I am not mistaken in my 
recollection, went across the Avenue to 
Fouquet's, the famous, where we demonstrated 
the fact that even if they could not Kve up to 
the tradition in regard to the slight people, they 
were both light hearted and appreciated the 
vintage of the country. 

One of the two gave me evidence of his sin- 
cerity and feeling the day that news came that 
I was no longer a Benevolent Neutral, but had 
the right to he considered as one of them. 

My office telephone rang and I recognized 
the voice of my friend who asked in some agita- 
tion if I should be in the office for a few minutes 
longer. I assured him that I should and he said 
that he wished to see me on a matter of im- 
^66 



CONCLUSION 

portance and would be there in a very short 
while. 

He came hastily into the office with a broad 
grin on his face and immediately said, "Church, 
I have told you a lie." I interjected, "Prob- 
ably not the first, Charles," and he went on not 
heeding the interruption. "I have no business 
to talk, but I have just heard the news of the 
United States and I did not wish any one else 
to be the first to greet you as an Ally: please 
tell me that I am the first." I assured him 
that he was and with a whoop he gathered me 
to a very broad, blue clad French breast and 
I emerged with aching ribs and somewhat 
heightened color, to realize that I had been 
kissed on both cheeks by a very enthusiastic 
and also a very capable and distinguished Officer 
of the French Army. A New England con- 
science forces me to admit that, on this occasion 
also, we motored to M. Fouquet's and cemented 
the new union in a perfectly proper and excel- 
lently well made concession to the Western Hem- 
isphere, a Martini cocktail, "bien sec." The 
?67 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

French love to tease, "taquiner" as they put it. 
They are as good at it as any of us Yankees 
and quite as clever. They tease each other 
without end, and if they decide that they like 
you, they tease you too: and you do not mind 
it, for it is very good natured and you tease 
them back again and if you get the best of one 
of them his comrades will take it up with him 
and guy him unmercifully. 

Their relations with each other in the Army 
are simple and in a way less formal than in 
our own service. I do not mean to intimate 
that there is any lack of discipline nor loss of 
the formal courtesies, but they can seemingly 
let down the bars in situations where to us there 
would be no passing. On one trip I made, I 
had as my mecanicien a very nice chap who was 
the grandson of Violet-le-Duc, the famous archi- 
tect under the third Napoleon. I had a letter 
to a Medical Officer with a certain army and, 
when in answer to my message sent in to his 
office he came out to greet me, the first thing he 
did after a hurried word to me was to go to 
268 



CONCLUSION 

the other side of the automobile, pull my 
mecanicien out by his collar, throw his arms 
around him and laugh and chatter for some 
minutes. He was a Major in the Medical Corps 
and the mecanicien a private in the Automobile 
Service. He explained that he and the Tnecani- 
cien had been desk mates in school in Paris 
twenty years before and that this was the first 
time they had met; and he asked me with a 
little doubtful touch of embarrassment, if it 
would offend me to come to dinner that evening 
with him, the mecanicien, and his friend the 
chauffeur. 

I told him I thought I could make that con- 
cession in view of the fact that the chauffeur, 
the mecanicien, my companion and I had been 
eating all our meals together since we had 
started about a week previously. We had a 
jolly dinner that night and the next night the 
mecanicien entertained in our honor. It was 
all simple and natural, and when we set out on 
tour with the machine the mecanicien was the 
careful, respectful private, watchful to do 
269 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

everything possible for the comfort of the offi- 
cers whom he served and not at all disturbed 
or puffed up by any familiarity which might 
have engendered from the fact that we had all 
been dining and drinking good French wine to- 
gether the night before. They seem to slide 
easily from the relation of strict Military 
regime to the more personal one and back again 
with never a touch of undue or offensive famil- 
iarity. I do not think we could do it in our 
own service, but as the old song puts it, it is, 
I expect, "because we ain't built that way," 

For some months, while I was serving on our 
own Headquarters Staff, I was billeted with 
two very delightful old French people. Mon- 
sieur and Madame R . When I moved into 

my quarters I think they were a little dubious 
as to what the barbarian American might be 
like and I remember the look of relief which 
flitted over Madame's kindly face when I took 
off my cap and, apologizing in my best French 
for the intrusion, assured her that I would be as 
little trouble as possible. Figuratively, she 
270 



CONCLUSION 

took me to her heart then and there and from 
that time on I was to all intents and purposes 
a member of the household, and so they dubbed 
me, "le fils du maison." Her husband was 
seventy-two, spent much of his time riding a 
bicycle and all the rainy, cold days out with a 
gun and dog, hunting. Madame was some sixty 
odd and quite as active as her husband. He 
was an inveterate tease and between us we used 
to plague Madame to her pretended distraction, 
but I know she liked it. They did everything 
possible to add to my comfort in their spot- 
less house and when my orders took me from the 
village and from France, she put her arms 
around my neck and frankly crying, said as she 
kissed me good bye, "But my son, my son, we 
shall miss you so." It is not hard to like, to 
be fond of, people who treat you so. 

My office there was about a mile from the 

house where I lived with M. and Madame R 

and in the winter it was quite dark when the 
time came for me to go home: the early dark- 
ness of winter at half past five. Almost every 
271 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

evening I walked home with a young lady; for 
a long time I did not know whether she were 
pretty or not, nor her name. She never asked 
me to call in spite of the fact that she lived just 
across the street from me and that we always 
held hands as we came along the dark streets. 
I found out later that she was pretty, and that 
her name was Marcelle. You see Marcelle was 
just nine years old, and she got out of school 
just about the time I came home. And so, 
when I got to a certain corner there was a 
patter of little feet, the swish of thin little 
skirts, a little cold hand slipped into mine and 
a childish treble which piped, "C'est Marcelle, 
mon Colonel," and away we went, the big Ameri- 
can officer and the little French refugee from 
invaded France, for such she was. 

She told me that the arithmetic had been 
hard that day, or the teacher cross, and of what 
she hoped to have for supper and the news of 
mother and her little brother. She was always 
cheerful and always very punctilious, with her 
"Oui, mon Colonel," and "Mais certainement, 
272 



CONCLUSION 

mon Colonel," and when we parted at the door 
she never failed to wish me a good appetite and 
sound slumber. Poor little waif; she had 
lived in Picardy somewhere until driven out by 
the German invasion when they had drifted to 
this town where her mother by dint of daily toil 
and such aid as the village people could give 
her, kept the little family in food and the 
meager black they wore. The husband and 
father had been called, as all France was, to the 
colors and after one of the engagements news 
came that he was missing. Just that one 
agonizing word : and from that time on he had 
been only a memory, a wistfully hoped for per- 
son who would never return to find those whom 
war and invasion had driven from the humble 
home in Picardy so far afield. Not all the 
tragedies are in the men who are killed or 
wounded. If war is hard for those who bear 
the brunt of the attack and whose bodies carry 
the mark of hostile steel, there is still a world 
of silent agony, of waiting suffering for those 
who can only bear with weary patience the days 
273 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

and months which elapse after son or father or 
husband has gone to the wars. 

To the killed and the wounded there is added 
that category which has always seemed to me to 
be, by the very uncertainty of it, the hardest 
to bear. I mean the hopeful, hopeless, state 
which is entered under the head of "missing." 
**Missing" may mean so much, and at the same 
time, so little. In the majority of cases it 
signifies that he whose name is so carried is 
killed. Either lying undiscovered in some part 
of that withered stretch called "No Man's 
Land," or that he has been literally blown to 
nothing by the rending power of high explo- 
sive, or perchance that the shell which killed 
him has covered his torn body with a mantle 
of earth which hides it from all searching eyes. 
There are others missing too; those who have 
not fallen in battle. The fate of many who had 
the evil fortune to fall into German hands in the 
captured country will be for all time a mystery 
to those who wait with wistful eyes and aching 
hearts for news which will never come. It was 
274 



CONCLUSION 

this variation of conditions, this constant 
change of scene and association which gave a 
peculiar interest to the work as Military 
Observer. 

To the zest of the pursuit of desired informa- 
tion was added the contact with many people 
of interesting personality, and the constant 
change of environment. While still the repre- 
sentative of a neutral power I spent a month 
on the island of Corsica. During the days 
prior to the rupture of our peaceful relations 
with the German Government, our Embassies, 
both at Paris and Berlin, were charged with 
the supervision of the conditions existent in the 
various prison camps of both nations. Com- 
plaints were referred to our Ambassadors by 
the warring powers and investigated through 
this agency. I was sent with others delegated 
from our Embassy at Paris to look into condi- 
tions in the Corsican camps and, as a conse- 
quence, spent a month in the Corsican moun- 
tains. It was interesting aside from the duties 
to be performed for the country is probably 
275 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

the most picturesque in the world and the op- 
portunity to explore it by automobile an un- 
usual privilege. 

So far as the camps and the conditions in 
them were concerned, there was little to take 
exception to. The lot of a prisoner of war 
is naturally not an enviable one and the re- 
striction and the routine of course irksome. 
So far as we could determine, those who 
were confined were as well treated as the re- 
sources of the state permitted. There were 
no luxuries but when the men of France were 
undergoing what is incident to life in the 
trenches it would be folly to expect better for 
those who had fallen before the prowess of their 
arms. The Germans were better housed than 
the French in the field and as well fed. The 
general objection seemed to be, not that they 
were badly cared for, but an unreasoning ob- 
jection to being prisoners at all. I could well 
understand this, for to me being a prisoner of 
war with the attendant inaction and dull rou- 
tine seems one of the lowest forms of amuse- 
276 



CONCLUSION 

ment. In one of the camps I asked if there 
were present any one who spoke English. One 
of the men stepped forward, and since the 
French Captain who commanded the prison also 
spoke and understood English, I was allowed 
to talk to the man in that language. I asked 
him various questions in regard to conditions 
which he answered fairly with a degree of philos- 
ophy, and concluded by saying, "I have no 
complaint to make of my treatment, Major; 
the French, I do not doubt, do the best they 
can for us, but I must confess that I am not as 
well cared for as I was before I was interned." 
In answer to my inquiry, he replied, "Oh, be- 
fore the war I was one of the head waiters at the 
Ritz in Paris, and there is a quite marked con- 
trast between conditions there and here in 
Corsica." 

What sympathy I had, not much frankly, 
was with these civil internes rather than 
with the fighting men who had been given 
their chance, had taken their turn in the 
trenches and by the fortunes of war were now 
277 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

spared the hazard of further danger. The 
civilian had not even that service to look back 
on. Merely the knowledge that he was so much 
available man power that had been lost to his 
Government through the inadvertence of his 
having been in the wrong place at the wrong 
time. At the hotel in Bastia we were waited 
on by a cheerful Boche who answered to the 
name of "Willie." Willie had been, prior to 
hostilities, a waiter in the Continental hotel in 
Paris and according to his own statement, hav- 
ing little taste for martial career, had decided 
to emigrate to the United States when war 
seemed imminent in 1914. He delayed one 
steamer too long and the drag net swept him 
up and landed him in this Isle of the Vendetta, 
there to regret his procrastination. He was a 
good waiter and aside from the fact of his 
nationality perfectly acceptable. He spoke 
French of sorts and English of sorts also, but 
I think that there was always in his square head 
an undercurrent of German stupidity. I 
bought one of the cheeses which they make in 
278 



CONCLUSION 

Corsica and which are much like the Roquefort 
of France, As it developed a frank cheese 
aroma, I asked Willie to wrap it and mail it 
to my address in Paris, rather than have it 
continually advertising its existence in my be- 
longings. The next day I asked Willie if he 
had executed my commission and with the pride 
of duty well accomplished he replied, "Oh, yes, 
sir, I wrapped him and sent him to-day; and 
that he might go safely I wrapped him in a 
bottle." Now that cheese was some nine inches 
square and how even Willie could have 
"wrapped him in a bottle" was beyond my com- 
prehension. One of my companions asked me 
if "wrap" meant anything in French. It did, 
and it does, and Willie wandering in the mazes 
of his three tongues had put a French con- 
struction on that good English word and turned 
it into "raper" which means "to grate." On 
my arrival in Paris I found a very large bottle 
into which had been grated with methodical 
German thoroughness all of that very good 
cheese. 

279 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

Paris in war is not the Paris of peace. The 
beauty of the city is the same but the light- 
heartedness is gone. It is no longer the play- 
ground for all the world but the heart and soul 
of a very real and very near and very grim 
struggle. It is a sad city but not a despondent 
city. There is everywhere in it the evidence of 
the sacrifices a nation is making to preserve its 
integrity. Men in civil clothes are only those 
who are unfit for Military service: there are 
many women in black but they have not lost 
their courage nor the proud consciousness 
that the loss which is theirs means a supreme 
gift to the State. There is no music save the 
occasional rhythm of an army band which es- 
corts some regiment on its way to the front, 
or follows a black catafalque to the last resting 
place in Pere la Chaise. 

Dance they do not in war time and all cafes 
close decorously and finally at half after nine. 
It is a Paris shorn of the frivolities, peopled by 
wounded men who are still gay on their 
crutches, and with the ever-deferred-to "per- 
280 



CONCLUSION 

missionaire" who has come back to "Paname'* 
for the joy of his ten days' respite from the 
trenches. It is an interesting world, and I 
think more cosmopolitan now than it was in the 
days of happy peace. One meets here now, as 
he used to at Shepherd's in Cairo, all the world 
from everywhere and this is natural since our 
entry as an Ally, for to this city, the heart of 
France, come all those who can wheedle the 
State Department into issuing that rara avis, 
a passport to France. 

I read the other day, the answer of an 
Aviator who was asked the most thrilling mo- 
ment he remembered in connection with the war. 
It was, "Pershing's arrival in Paris." 

I should have said the same thing. You see, 
for many months we of the American Military 
Mission had been here, in the heart of things; 
becoming each day more and more imbued with 
the spirit which was later to actuate the whole 
Nation. Forced by the necessities of Diplo- 
matic custom to preserve a smiling and imper- 
sonal front with never a chance to express the 
281 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

convictions which had grown up within us; 
drab as our sedate civilian attire and politely 
tolerated by the French as some curious kind of 
third sex. 

And then came the April 6, 1917, and the 
right to put on the service uniform and know 
that it stood for a power of help and not as the 
badge of an indifferent foreigner. And after 
that, Wednesday, May the thirteenth, when 
Pershing arrived as the visible evidence that we 
were to take our part in the struggle. 

It was a very wonderful coming. There was 
no notice of it in the morning papers : no refer- 
ence in those at noon, and only a short note in 
the evening press which was on the streets at 
four o'clock. How all Paris learned of the 
fact I do not know, but learn they did and the 
ovation they gave to this General from over 
the sea was wonderful to see and doubly im- 
pressive from the fact that it was impromptu. 

At five- thirty, the Gare de I'Est was crowded 
and surrounded by a dense pack of people. In- 
side, preparations had been made for a fitting 
282 



CONCLUSION 

reception. JofFre was there, and Poincare and 
many high officials, and drawn up on the station 
platform was a battalion of Infantry in full 
marching order and flanked by the band of the 
Garde Republicaine. The arrival of the General 
in the station, his greetings by the high French 
officials, the blare of the band, the French vet- 
erans who stood fixed at "present arms" — all 
this was impressive, but to my mind it was insig- 
nificant in comparison to the homage of the 
waiting thousands without. 

All the way down the rue Lafayette, ap- 
propriate entry for the United States on such 
an occasion, and on over the two miles which 
lay between the station and the hotel, these 
Paris streets were dense with those who wished 
to see the vanguard of the new Allies. There 
was no hysterics, no superabundance of enthu- 
siasm, but a sober confidence, an apparent be- 
lief that the force needed to weigh down the 
scale had come at last. There was to me some- 
thing inexpressibly touching in it; something 
that thrilled one and made the whole being tin- 
283 



THE DOCTOR'S PART 

gle with pride and emotion. As General Persh- 
ing went out on the balcony of the Hotel Cril- 
lon facing the Place de la Concorde and bared 
his head to the cheering crowd below, one was 
conscious of the emotion which stirred him, 
which must have been inevitable in the face of 
such a demonstration of faith and confidence 
and I think we all had an inkling of the thoughts 
which must have been his. 

It was a spectacle I shall always remember 
and be glad to remember: I am proud to think 
that I was permitted to see it and that there 
was accorded me, before and after this, some 
chance to aid in the common cause, to fulfill that 
which is the wish of every normal man, to give 
of his own effort the best he can when his coun- 
try calls. 



THB END 



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020 933 856 7 



